Lily looked down at Lissy, who was sleeping again now, her head still resting against Lily’s chest. She looked fragile and utterly exhausted in that moment, and it hurt Lily more than she wanted to admit to see her like this. Seeing Lissy this way still felt unreal in a way that was hard to put into words, because she looked exactly like her in-game avatar, and yet she was here, warm and solid, breathing softly against Lily’s chest.
They really did it, didn’t they, because they brought you over too, and now you’re here with me…
The thought should’ve made her happy, and part of her was. Having Lissy—her best friend—here, safe and alive, felt like something she’d wanted deep in her core, because no one wanted to be alone or separated from their friends or family, right?
But another feeling was tangled up with it as well, something heavy and uncomfortable that refused to loosen its grip. It was a quiet doubt that lingered no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, and Lily felt conflicted because of it.
At first, she’d assumed she was only overthinking things again and hesitating about when to use the phone or whether to use it at all, so everything could stay on her own terms. But holding Lissy in her arms now made her realize something she hadn’t wanted to face before, because left to herself, she probably would’ve never used the phone in the first place.
Because even if it was a dream for many people back on Earth to leave everything behind and start over in a fantasy world with near godlike powers, Lily knew after experiencing it firsthand that it was far more than that. It wasn’t just about abandoning your old life to chase a new kind of happiness in another world, because the idea of finding happiness through nothing more than a convenient twist of fate had always been nothing but bait in Lily’s eyes.
There was something rotten beneath it all, something that only became visible once you looked past the surface. For Lily, that something had been the fucking showcase mannequin. It had pretended that everything was part of some grand plan, that she was meant to play a role in a future war to somehow fix whatever fuck up the gods of this world were responsible for. And as if that hadn’t been suspicious enough already, it had also tried to convince her that meeting her at that exact moment, just to hand her that brick of a phone, had been planned all along. But Lily knew that was bullshit.
Whatever that thing really was, it had never wanted to meet her in the first place. It had messed up, and now it was scrambling to cover for it. It had lied to her, or at the very least twisted the truth of everything it’d told her. Maybe some of its goals were real. Maybe this world truly was broken in ways she didn’t fully understand yet. But one thing was absolutely certain to her. Wherever this all was leading, it wasn’t leading to happiness, because this wasn’t a fucking game. And it definitely didn’t care what happened to her, or to anyone she loved. And she knew that it had known she’d come to that conclusion once she’d had enough time to think things through and maybe get a bit of sleep, which was why it had manipulated everything so Lissy was here now, and why the others were probably coming too.
But mannequin had made one fatal mistake, though. If it thought they’d all just play along with its little game, then it shouldn’t have reincarnated her inside her Xantia avatar. Slaying gods and reshaping faith had been a decent twelve-hour side quest back then, not some impossible, mythical task.
You really have no idea what you unleashed, do you…
Even if it sounded cheesy, Lily was convinced of one thing, because bringing the top thousand Xantia players into this world hadn’t been some clever move at all. It’d been reckless, and sooner or later, whoever or whatever stood behind it would learn that lesson the hard way, especially if they’d failed to look more closely at what those people had been capable of inside the game.
With a quiet sigh, Lily carefully shifted the sleeping Lissy away from her and gently settled her back into the bed before straightening up. There were still many things left unsaid, and she knew she’d need to talk to Lissy about what had happened and where she was, once she woke up properly. Lily suspected that Lissy still thought she was dreaming, especially since she’d only been awake for a very short time so far.
Lily didn’t know exactly why Lissy seemed so drained, but she’d already checked that her energy was slowly returning, which meant it was probably nothing more than sheer exhaustion from whatever process had brought her into this world and dropped her into the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by corpses, where Lily had found her.
But for now, Lily needed to catch up with reality again. She was sure that quite a bit of time had passed between the moment the call had ended and the point where she’d come back to her senses on the battlefield, right before she’d found Lissy. The gap felt wrong, like someone had simply cut a piece out of her memory and stitched the rest back together.
What did that voice on the phone say would happen again?
She frowned slightly and tried to remember. Something about a Faith Program, and something about the target’s memories being suppressed after the call ended. That part alone should’ve applied to Lissy, not to her. So why had she lost parts of her own memory as well?
Wait… there was a warning after I regained consciousness, wasn’t there?
The thought made her pause, and she focused inward while opening her status, browsing through it until she found what she was looking for. Since Lily still had the same interface she’d known from Xantia, she knew there should be a system log as well, and to her relief it wasn’t greyed out. So, she reopened the warning and read through it carefully.
___
[WARNING: Reality Distortion Detected]
Reality is shifting. Mental exhaustion detected. Defensive integrity too low to resist.
Mental state compromised. Loading mental defenses failed. Resistance weakened due to current mental exhaustion.
Loading alternate defenses: Combat Autonomy…
Loading successful.
Soul fragment detected: Princess of the Abyss. Granting access for autonomy.
Emotional latency suppressed. Manual override unavailable.
___
Lily slowly exhaled. So that’s it… reality distortion.
That explained at least part of it. If reality had shifted while she was mentally exhausted, then it could’ve caused some kind of time skip, where things had already happened before she’d been fully aware again. That still left one question she didn’t like at all.
Combat autonomy?
Her jaw tightened as the implication sank in, because that meant she could also be forced to run on autopilot whenever she wasn’t capable of conscious thought.
So, what decides in that moment what the reasonable course of action is? Is it my subconscious, some older part of me, or is it the system itself?
In the end, whatever the answer was, she’d slaughtered the people outside in the woods without remembering it afterward, because something had taken control in that moment and decided she wasn’t in a state to make her own decisions before handing control over to something else. Either that, or the mention of the reality shift seemed to imply that the past in that moment had been rewritten to the point where she’d already killed those people, and it was now simply a fact she had to live with.
Great, just great, another mind fuck layered on top of everything else…
Also, it’d be a cruel joke if all of this had been triggered by nothing more than sleep deprivation, even though the warning was pretty clear that her resistance had been weakened due to mental exhaustion. Still, that explanation didn’t sit right on its own, because exhaustion alone didn’t explain everything. And if she was honest with herself, the exhaustion hadn’t come just from too little sleep in the first place. It was mental, emotional, and something deeper than that. The constant strain of existing as Lily Carter from Earth and the Princess of the Abyss, Lilithia Nocturne, inside the same Xantia avatar had probably escalated things far more than she’d wanted to admit, especially since she hadn’t even been aware of that conflict most of the time and had only felt like something was influencing her from the outside. And with sleep deprivation piled on top of all of that, it was no wonder her mental defenses had been completely fucked up.
Well, dwelling on it wouldn’t help anything. If Lily wanted to prevent something like this from happening again, she needed to act now, and she needed to do it before things escalated even further. Since she didn’t fully understand what had gone wrong in the first place, she decided to rely on one of her primary class skills this time. Even if the skill probably came with its own problems, Lily decided she’d deal with those later. Right now, having something in place was better than leaving herself exposed again.
As a [Hellweaver (Demon Spellblade)], Lily wasn’t just built for raw offense, even though her class leaned heavily toward aggressive, high-damage combat. She also had access to some of the strongest defensive skills in the game, rivaled only by full tank classes. That wasn’t an accident. Her role had always been to engage first, to step into melee range when no real tank was present, and to draw the brunt of enemy attention through sheer pressure and presence. Which also meant she was usually the one taking the first hits.
Especially since not only physical attacks were a thing. In higher-tier dungeons, mental attacks, time manipulation, and even fate-based effects existed as well. Back in the game, those usually manifested as briefly losing control over movement, getting teleported somewhere else, or having skills blocked in the middle of a fight.
But since this was now the real world, Lily was certain those defensive skills would still perform accordingly here as well. Maybe not exactly like she knew them, but she was open enough to see what would happen when she used them, because no matter how the skills translated, it couldn’t be worse than ending up in a situation like that again.
She focused inward, ignoring the familiar sensation of knowledge flooding her mind as she activated the skill: [False Fate Overlay]. A sharp sting flared in her chest for a brief moment, like something piercing straight through her heart with a needle, and then something shifted around her. An afterimage of herself stepped out of her body and settled behind her. The image tilted its head and grinned at Lily, then slowly collapsed into her shadow, briefly forming a V-sign with its fingers toward her before fading into the floor. It left behind a second, darker shadow, slightly out of sync with her original one.
“That was ominous…” Lily murmured, before she glanced toward the window and noticed that it was already evening. With a quiet sigh, she forced her focus back onto her other problems and ignored the second shadow for now. She’d probably returned with Lissy only a few hours ago, which meant she’d lost close to an entire day at best, maybe more, and the realization only made her angrier about the whole situation.
If those fuckers could influence reality to this extent, then there was no way the damn showcase mannequin hadn’t set everything up to reach this exact point.
With a deep sigh, Lily looked back one last time at the sleeping Lissy before finally leaving the room. She closed the door quietly behind her and straightened up, because lingering wouldn’t help anyone right now. She needed to catch up with reality as soon as possible, whether she liked it or not.
So, she walked down the long corridor on the first floor of her mansion and stopped in front of Tessa’s room, knocking once to check if her apprentice was there. When she’d returned with Lissy earlier, Lily had flown straight to one of the balconies and gone directly to one of the taller guest rooms, so she hadn’t really seen anyone on arrival. Still, she was sure at least a few of the garrison soldiers had noticed her when she’d crossed over the walls and headed for the mansion.
After waiting a few seconds with no response, Lily reached for the handle and opened the door herself, only to find the room empty, with no sign of Tessa anywhere inside.
Lily frowned and paused, trying to think where her apprentice could be. Then the memory hit her.
“Ah, are you fucking kidding me right now?” she muttered under her breath.
That’s right, that’s exactly why I’d been awake in the first place when the damn phone rang, because I wanted to check on her and make sure everything was fine…
She drew in a slow breath and forced herself to steady her thoughts.
Stay calm, Lily... You don’t even know if she just hasn’t come back yet or if she simply isn’t here right now, because who knows how much time you’re actually missing at this point. She could be anywhere in the fortress, and it’s not like Tessa would just forget how to use the teleport circle rune I showed her, right?
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
That thought helped a little, even if it didn’t fully settle her nerves.
She turned away from the empty room and headed back down the stairs, her pace quickening as she crossed the gallery and pushed through the doors leading out of the mansion.
Outside, she paused when she noticed thick snowflakes slowly descending from the sky. They drifted down in lazy spirals, settling on stone and her armor alike.
Huh… so it wasn’t my imagination after all that the temperature’s been dropping these last days…
She exhaled softly and shook her head.
Well, whatever.
For a moment, she considered stopping by the forge, but dismissed the idea almost immediately when she saw how quiet it looked. Instead, she turned toward the keep, deciding that was the better place to start.
When she reached it, a soldier on watch straightened immediately and bowed deeply in front of her.
“Princess! Citadel Lord Igrath is inside, and he’ll be delighted to see you!”
She nodded once in response, and the soldier hurried to open the massive gates of the keep. He then led her inside and through the corridors until they reached the great hall.
Inside, a large U-shaped table dominated the center of the room. Igrath sat at its midpoint on a massive stone throne, his broad frame filling the seat so completely that it almost looked too small for him, in a strangely comical way. To either side of him sat the legion centurion and both of the garrison’s lieutenants. Marie stood nearby, leaning over a large map spread across the table while discussing something quietly with the others.
When Lily entered, the soldier who had led her inside raised his voice.
“The ruling Princess of the Empire, Lady Lilithia Nocturne, has arrived! Glory to the Princess! Glory to the Empire!”
Huh… where did that come from? Lily thought, caught off guard.
Everyone rose from their seats and bowed respectfully toward her. Lily inclined her head in acknowledgment, and only then did they sit down again.
Igrath, the massive demon, looked for the first time Lily had seen him more like a statesman than a smith, and it was also the first time she’d ever seen him wearing an actual shirt.
Wow… he looks good. Not that I dislike his abs or anything, but it’s honestly refreshing to see him not always walking around shirtless for once...
…Uh, Lily, where the hell did that thought even come from just now? Get it together and stop distracting yourself with nonsense like that…
“Honored Highblood, welcome back. We’re glad to see you’ve returned.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lily replied, glancing around the table. “So, what’s all this about?”
Igrath gestured toward the map. “Come closer and have a look. The cultists, under Marie’s leadership,” he said, nodding toward her, “have mapped out the surrounding area so we can get a better grasp of our position. We’re currently using it to plan defensive measures for an incoming attack.”
“An incoming attack?” Lily asked. “And why don’t I know about this?” She hesitated briefly before adding, “Actually… yeah. There’s been a lot going on. How long has it been since you last saw me?”
Marie cleared her throat. “Almost three days, Princess. We tried to inform you, but the gargoyles blocked access to your mansion. Lord Igrath decided it would be better to wait until you showed up on your own.”
Igrath snorted softly. “After all, there was nothing we couldn’t handle ourselves, since you were so kind as to name me Citadel Lord, honored Highblood.”
Was that sarcasm, or am I just imagining things?
“Right… three days,” Lily said slowly, the words tasting strange as she processed them. A flicker of relief settled in her chest, because if she’d simply lost time, then at least she hadn’t been walking around on some kind of uncontrolled autopilot the entire time.
On the other hand… what the fuck, three days? Are they actually fucking serious right now?
She kept those thoughts off her face, forcing her expression back into something neutral before she spoke.
“Bring me up to date.”
Marie nodded. “The day before yesterday, we received visitors. Envoys from Duke Valtiara. They were drawn here by the massive translucent flag above the fortress…”
“…and they weren’t amused by what they found,” Lily finished flatly.
Marie grimaced. “No, they weren’t. We highly suspect they’ll return with an actual army to take the fortress. Since we’re understaffed for something this large, we’ve been discussing where to concentrate our forces to minimize losses, especially in case you didn’t return in time, Princess.”
Lily sighed quietly. “I’m sorry for disappearing without warning,” she said, then paused before adding, “but I think the incoming army’s already dead, so there’s no need to worry about that right now.”
The reaction was immediate.
“What?” “How?” “…You what?”
Marie stared at her in shock, Igrath burst out laughing, and the legion centurion looked at her with something close to worship in his eyes.
“As expected from the honored Highblood,” Igrath said between laughs.
“GLORY TO THE PRINCESS!” the centurion shouted.
“GLORY TO THE EMPIRE!” the lieutenants echoed.
Lily raised both hands quickly, clearly uncomfortable. “Okay, okay, calm down. It wasn’t exactly planned. I ran into them by chance. They should be about ten miles south of the south gate now, so you might want to check whether it’s the same army you were expecting.”
Marie blinked. “You… accidentally erased an army?”
“Yes,” Lily replied flatly.
Igrath laughed again, louder this time.
“Well,” Lily added, rubbing the back of her neck, “they’ll probably think twice before questioning our legitimacy in this region now.”
Inside, though, her thoughts were far less certain.
I can’t exactly tell them that I don’t remember killing them in the first place. At least my bloody sword doesn’t leave any room for interpretation about what happened—so it’s not a lie, either…
She looked around the table, then asked, “Anyway, does anyone know where my apprentice is?”
Marie shook her head apologetically. “No, sorry. We haven’t seen her either over the last few days. We assumed she was with you.”
Well, shit.
The realization hit Lily like a cold shower down her spine. If Tessa wasn’t here, then she was probably still in Tiara. And that thought alone was enough to make her stomach twist unpleasantly. Tiara was still politically unstable after the takeover, and Lily really didn’t want to imagine what state the city might be in after several days without her presence.
She slowly inhaled through her nose and exhaled the same way, forcing the tension down before it could spiral. It was a breathing technique Lissy had shown her back when she’d visited, and annoyingly enough, it actually worked.
Once she felt steady enough, Lily straightened and spoke again. “Since the matter with the incoming attack is settled, we’re heading to Tiara,” she said in a firm tone. “The city’s too large to leave unattended for this long.”
She turned toward the legion centurion. “Call in everyone from the Infernal Guard, and bring the battlemage as well. They’re coming with me. I know we’re already stretched thin, but I need people with at least a reasonable combat level in case things went downhill while I was gone.”
Then she looked at the lieutenants. “You,” she said, nodding toward one of them, “you’re coming too. The rest will stay here.”
Her gaze shifted to Marie. “You’re still in charge of supplies, right?”
When Marie nodded, Lily opened her inventory without another word. Sacks and bundled goods began to materialize out of thin air beside the table, one after another, until a sizable portion of her market haul from Tiara lay stacked neatly on the stone floor. She’d left out the skewers, but everything else was there.
Marie stared at the growing pile with wide eyes before quickly composing herself. “I’ll take care of it,” she said, already mentally sorting through logistics.
Marie’s acting strangely confident around me today, Lily noted. And she’s clearly taken the lead among the cultists alongside Igrath.
The thought flickered through her mind, but she didn’t linger on it. There wasn’t time to dig into every small shift in dynamics right now, and all things considered, it was a good development rather than a worrying one.
If anything, it’s one less thing I need to micromanage, she decided, and let the matter drop for now.
The others voiced their agreement with Lily’s orders, and Igrath finally spoke again. “I’ll handle matters here while you head to Tiara, of course, honored Highblood…”
Lily caught something in his tone that made her pause for half a second.
Is that annoyance I’m hearing…? Right… the legendary smith probably isn’t thrilled about being stuck as a Citadel Lord instead of doing what he’s actually famous for, which is forging, of course…
Yeah, I get it, she admitted internally, but I really don’t have anyone who could replace him here right now.
Her gaze flicked back to Igrath, and another idea clicked into place.
Maybe he just needs the right incentive.
She opened her inventory again and pulled out a single coin. It was far heavier than it looked, its surface colored in a sickly gold tone with a greenish shimmer running through it. Heat radiated faintly from the metal, even in her hand.
With a casual flick of her wrist, she tossed it toward him.
Igrath caught it mid-air on reflex, and the moment his fingers closed around it, his eyes widened slightly.
“Also,” Lily added, “when you have time, and I’m sure you’ll find some later, use this Orichalcum Crown to make me a dagger as a present for my apprentice, okay? I don’t have a bar of it, sadly, but one crown should be enough material. Or do you need another?”
Igrath stared at the coin for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “It’s pure,” he said with a noticeably warmer voice now. “It should be enough. It shall be done.”
Beside him, Marie stood frozen, her mouth slightly open as she stared at the coin.
“Orichalcum…” she murmured faintly. “Am I dreaming…?”
Lily ignored that entirely and nodded once to Igrath. “Good. Then we move fast.”
The meeting dissolved into motion after that. Orders were relayed, chairs scraped back, and within a surprisingly short time, the twenty soldiers from the Infernal Guard, along with the lieutenant and the battlemage, had assembled in front of Lily’s mansion. After a brief round of greetings and formal acknowledgments, Lily turned and led them inside without wasting any more time.
She guided them through the gallery and down toward the teleport chamber. When they reached it, she slowed and came to a stop in front of the teleport circle that led to Tiara.
The shimmering glyphs etched into the floor with her personal, special glittering chalk were dull and completely lifeless, with no trace of mana flowing through them anymore.
Her gaze dropped to the mana stone embedded at the center of the circle, or rather what was left of it. The crystal was cracked through, drained completely, and crumbling at the edges.
Lily exhaled slowly, feeling too tired to even be surprised anymore.
Of course.
There were plenty of reasons why this could have happened. Someone could’ve sabotaged it deliberately, but the far more likely explanation was damage caused by a violent surge of magic. Given everything that had happened recently, an outburst of reality-bending nonsense would fit well.
Another little side effect of that whole shitshow, she thought darkly.
In the end, it didn’t really matter. She couldn’t prove anything either way, and obsessing over it wouldn’t change her ever-growing resentment toward the fucking showcase mannequin.
At least this meant one important thing.
Tessa didn’t just forget to come back, Lily realized. And she wasn’t lost in Tiara because she messed up the rune.
The tension in her chest eased slightly at that. For the first time in a while, something pointed toward relief instead of another disaster. Maybe she’d just made the best out of her forced stay in Tiara with Vessikar and the nobles after all.
She reached into her inventory and pulled out another mana stone, this one larger and far more stable. Kneeling, she carefully set it into the center of the circle and adjusted its position until it locked into place.
“Five at a time,” Lily ordered calmly as she stood again. “Move in groups and wait for the signal.”
The soldiers complied without hesitation, forming into groups of five and stepping into the circle as instructed. Lily activated it, watching closely as the runes flared back to life.
One group after another vanished in flashes of light until all twenty members of the Infernal Guard were gone. Once the chamber was empty again, Lily stepped into the circle herself, the lieutenant and the battlemage joining her at her sides.
She took one last breath, then activated the circle again.
The world dissolved into light as they were pulled toward Tiara.
???
Detailed Info — Skill: [False Fate Overlay]
Tier: Epic
Skill Tree: [Defensive Arts] → Branch: [Causality Manipulation] → Subclass: [Fate Interference]
Type: Metaphysical / Defensive / Narrative Control
Required Level: 950+
Activation: Toggle (Passive with Active Initialization)
Description:
Applies a fabricated destiny layer over the user’s true existence, causing fate, prophecy, and narrative causality to misidentify and track a false version of the self.
Rather than resisting or negating destiny, False Fate Overlay redirects deterministic systems—prophecy, divine foresight, inevitability clauses, and narrative enforcement—toward a constructed outcome that no longer corresponds to the user’s actual actions.
Causality resolves as intended. It simply resolves for the wrong subject.
Activation Effect (Initialization Phase)
Upon activation, the False Destiny Layer is instantiated and registered by surrounding causal systems.
Perceptible Effects:
- A desynchronized afterimage of the user manifests, offset slightly in position and timing.
- The afterimage may display autonomous micro-behavior independent of the user’s immediate actions.
The manifested afterimage is not a visual artifact. It is the active fate anchor to which prophecy, foresight, targeting, and narrative enforcement are redirected.
Once instantiated:
- Fate-based systems prioritize the afterimage over the user.
- Oracles, divinations, inevitability effects, and destiny-bound targeting lock onto the construct.
- The user is treated as peripheral or undefined within fate calculations.
- The fate anchor persists as a shadow imprint, continuing to draw deterministic effects away from the user’s true position and actions.
Core Effects:
- Generates a persistent False Destiny Layer treated as authoritative by fate-based systems.
- Prophecies, inevitability clauses, destiny locks, and foresight resolve against the fate anchor rather than the user.
- Grants resistance to:
- Fate-bound debuffs
- Retroactive causality edits
- Narrative enforcement effects (Allows the user to deviate from predicted behavior without triggering immediate correction.)
Secondary Effects
- Prediction-based enemy abilities suffer reduced accuracy and delayed execution.
- Divine observers, oracles, and fate-sensitive entities experience:
- Conflicting visions
- Cognitive strain
- Incomplete or corrupted foresight
Scaling Rules (Critical)
Effectiveness scales with Existential Authority, not raw mana.
Key factors include:
- Number of disrupted fate resolutions survived
- Resistance to mind and soul manipulation
- Interaction with prophecy-bound entities
- Recognition as a narrative anomaly
Insufficient authority results in:
- Partial overlays
- Unstable fate anchors
- Increased reconciliation pressure
Limitations
- Does not prevent direct physical or magical damage.
- Ineffective against purely reactive attacks with no predictive component.
- Accepting prophecy or willingly following a predetermined outcome weakens the overlay.
- Extended use increases the likelihood of Causality Reconciliation Events, including:
- Forced coincidence chains
- Environmental hostility
- Intervention by fate-aligned entities
Failure Conditions
If the False Destiny Layer collapses:
- Deferred fate corrections may attempt to resolve simultaneously.
- Possible consequences include:
- Temporal backlash
- Memory bleed
- Brief loss of causality anchoring
Extreme failure may trigger direct narrative enforcement.
Restrictions
- Only one False Fate Overlay may be active per entity.
- Cannot be copied, transferred, or applied to others.
- Entities bound to absolute destiny partially bypass this skill.
World Impact
Repeated use marks the user as a Narrative Contaminant.
Higher powers may alter behavior, avoid fate-based actions, or pursue indirect containment.
“For a heartbeat, the world insists you are already dead. Then it realizes it made a mistake.”