LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 219
Chapter: 219
Once, there was an ordinary girl who protected a world on the brink of destruction. She picked up a sword just to keep her family safe, but all she got in return was an empty Divine Seat.
She was forcefully thrust into the position of a god.
The girl, now a deity, wanted to return to her family, but she couldn’t even get close. The interest and mercy of a god were calamities for humans.
And so, the girl became ‘alone.’
As time passed, she tried to hold onto her fading humanity by living like a human. No matter how much a god imitated being human, their essence remained unchanged, and she instinctively knew everything was meaningless, yet she couldn’t stop.
Then one day, the girl learned about the dimensions beyond her own.
As she recognized the unknown space filled with Outsiders, some who were similar or even stronger than her, a thrilling hope welled up inside her.
If I can’t go to my family because of my rank, then I’ll just become family with someone of a similar rank!
Thus, the girl began to meet countless ‘Outsiders.’ The greedy beings devoid of any humanity scoffed at her thoughts and lusted after her world.
Since all that remained for her was a broken world, she desperately fought to protect it. As time went by, the girl—no, she—gained such formidable power that even the higher-ranking Outsiders began to crawl around her.
But the higher her rank rose, the further her dreams drifted away, and her humanity slipped through her fingers like grains of sand.
Then one day, she discovered a soul with a vast power that could turn even the signs of destruction into its own.
Could that soul allow me to live alongside it as equals, granting the family I was forced to lose?
With an excited heart, she brought the soul from the doomed world, which casually began to ‘talk’ to her. Her fading humanity gradually began to take form again, stirring a divine ecstasy within her.
She attached her powers to the soul so it could have the rank of a god, fed it her blood, and tore away a part of herself to shape its body.
Since it would be troublesome if she somehow grew fond of the humor world and wished to remain ‘human,’ she intentionally left her past memories intact. Thanks to that, he awkwardly adapted to the humor world while fitting the ‘reincarnated person’ trope.
Thus, her carefully crafted family was finally completed, yet it lost the most crucial core.
“…?”
“…”
What she wanted wasn’t this failed creation. Disappointment, despair, and anger welled up inside her.
The god before her would crumble and vanish like sand at the slightest gesture. The newly born god was that fragile. Yet, she could not let that happen. No, she wouldn’t.
Recalling the horror and misery of sitting on a divine seat with human emotions, she silently embraced Lian.
The long-held wish that had been dreamed and yearned for had scattered into nothingness. The desire for a being like herself not to suffer the same pain felt so ‘human.’ The Comedy God chuckled softly as she muttered to herself.
“…Haha, where’s the fun in being alone? Now we can even play multiplayer games!”
The lonely god cried without tears.
*
The Demon King, who had met a futile end after drawing a sword against the Demon God—now only the name Ellensia remained—opened her eyes in a pure white space.
Unlike the realm created by the Comedy God, here a long road stretched endlessly, flanked by square frames floating in midair.
‘This is… my memory?’
The pictures hanging on the wall were all fragments of her past. Instinctively, she took a step forward. As she did, scenes from the pictures poured into her mind like watching a play.
In a moment, her childhood self, barely reaching knee height, was nestled in her father’s arms, smiling happily.
‘Right, it started from then.’
Her father had wished for a blue sky and a starry night before she was even born. He didn’t speak in front of the Demon King, but the residents of the Demon World and his subordinates thought it was all a fanciful dream.
“Humans with infinite potential will surely find a way!”
Her father, too, was well aware of how greedy and avaricious humans could be. Yet he believed they could coexist, having seen great potential in them.
‘Half-orc, half-demon, half-elf, half-dragon… only humans can marry other races and have children!’
Thanks to the rich possibilities, her father nurtured his dreams.
He aimed to unify the forces of the Demon World and erase its brutal culture one by one. When the Demon King’s castle appeared in the Middle World, he hoped that it would be treated as a single nation, like the beastmen and elves.
Through hard work, the Demon World began to change remarkably. Although many still had brutal hands, it grew to be akin to a city in the human world known for poor security.
What had once seemed a fanciful dream in her father’s mind slowly became palpable, almost within reach.
Tap.
Her footsteps stopped in front of a frame painted in dull colors.
‘…Yeah, it changed from here.’
Her father’s once bright eyes had dulled, and they began to move as if chased by something. Simultaneously, the atmosphere of the Demon World transformed horrifically, tainting a once-white canvas with dark ink.
The residents of the Demon World, who previously only quarreled, suddenly began to see the killing of each other and tasting blood as something natural. As this brutality spread like a plague, she immediately sought out her father, but was only chased away with the excuse that he was busy.
‘Foolishly… I thought it would be fine.’
Her father, who had always tackled every obstacle wisely, believed everything would resolve itself and did his best to do what he could.
What came back to her was the ludicrous report that ‘the Four Heavenly Kings killed the hero and then died.’ Learning it was under the Demon King’s orders, she immediately sought out her father… and faced a terrible secret.
“The battle between the Demon King and the hero, the conflict between the Demon World and the human world, is simply trapped in a horrific cycle! I… I thought I had escaped it, cough, hack… Hah, hah… but I hadn’t. Not at all—…”
She stared through her mind at the memories she had recalled so many times.
‘The horrific cycle… it was just a repeat—…’
In the dark room, she pondered over her father’s words multiple times, trying to deduce their meaning. There was so little information available that the facts she could discover were limited.
‘The fight between the hero and the Demon King might be… a play manually created by someone.’
But who would trap the Demon King and hero in such a cruel cycle?
Unresolved questions persisted sharply, but after her father’s passing, she became the puppet of the Demon God and could not conduct a proper investigation, ultimately ending her life without knowing anything.
‘…I don’t want to face the memories that come after this.’
Ellensia bit her lips, unable to move forward. The ensuing memories were simply a continuous nightmare. At that moment, a conversation she didn’t remember echoed in her mind.
“God…! Everything is just a play created by the Sun God to expand its divine powers… to increase its following… a never-ending struggle between the hero… and the citizens of the Demon World…”
“…!”
The Dark Fantasy God periodically staged a brutal play between the hero and the Demon King to fill its divine power and expand its influence.
The residents of the Demon World’s violent tendencies were artificially cultivated; they were designed for such a purpose when they were summoned to the Middle World.
The previous Demon King’s gaze shifted the moment he realized this. He stopped preparing to adapt to the Middle World and merely struggled to escape his fate.
Perhaps he wasn’t the only one, as he managed to uncover records of many Demon Kings who had fought the hero and ultimately perished. Using all information available, he finally managed to drag down a god and escape his destiny.
No, he believed he had escaped.
When the weakened god fled the world, Outsiders, eyeing its vacant spot, invaded. Among them, the highest-ranking being sought out her father, who had dragged a god down from the Divine Seat.
Those aiming for the Divine Seat couldn’t simply let someone like her father go.
And so, her father was killed by the starving Demon God, deprived of even his soul’s passage to the afterlife. He had tried to inform her of the harsh reality and urged her to escape her fate, but the Demon God, deciding to use her as a puppet, lightly touched and blurred that memory.
The Demon God aimed to erase all related memories entirely, but her father had embedded the last of his strength into her memories before dying, making merely blurring them the best he could do.
Thus, those hidden memories became exposed when the Demon God got devoured by Lian.
“Ah… aah…”
Faced with the truth she had come to far too late, she could only emit foolish sounds like a dazed person. After some time, her pallid mind was forcibly brought to a state of calm.
‘An éclair… right, this is an éclair.’
The astonishingly swift stability robbed the scene of its reality.
‘No matter what I realized… it’s all over now.’
There was nothing more she could do. Confessing sins at her father’s grave and crying tears of despair were the rights of the living.
“…Lian…”
It felt as if she had thrown away all desires and wants of life, yet his name spilled heartbreakingly from her lips.
‘I want to see you, right now… this instant.’
Nothing was okay, and yet everything felt alright at once. Some force in the white space had compelled her to find stability. The feelings she couldn’t express began to seek him, much like a child searching for its mother.
Her feet, once frozen with shock, began to move forward again. Memories of being the Demon God’s puppet sullied her mind. The more it did, the more the voice escaping her lips became desperate.
“Lian… Lian…!”
As she desperately called to him, she wondered how far she had traveled.
“…!”
Suddenly, like a ray of light pouring from darkness, memories of Lian flooded her mind.
The bittersweet taste of bitter medicine mixed with sweet candy spun her thoughts. Heavenly thrills and gentle comforts enveloped her.
She began to walk slowly. At times, she would get stuck on one memory like a statue eternally frozen.
The memories of her happiest times before dying bloomed like vibrant flowers, saturating her. With a dazed expression, she reached out to touch the frames, feeling neither warmth nor sensation, as if stirring the air.
“…”
At that moment, Ellensia realized that beyond the sweet ecstasy lay only endless despair.