"That line was obviously processed by another version of you. Are you really going to argue with yourself here?"

Lightchaser did not want to. It was far too embarrassing.

She grabbed the little figure that was still sitting on her head gnawing on a carrot, stuffed it into her pocket, and patted it twice. The tiny figure squeaked in protest. The elf gave a brief answer. "Romanticism. Courage."

Romanticism. Courage.

Two words that felt strangely unfamiliar.

Rita sat cross legged on her room balcony. Nivalis was already fast asleep inside, breathing evenly, but Rita could not fall asleep. Those two personality tags kept looping in her mind.

She was not narcissistic. If it had only been those two words, she would not have connected them to herself. But Lightchaser's little elf had also brought back a sentence from Ash Cinders.

"She might want to see whether the you who grew up can go farther, or whether the you from childhood can."

Romanticism was a complicated personality tag. Like perfectionism or idealism, it was one of those traits that could branch into countless definitions.

But such complex tags often carried both light and shadow. Choosing them meant accepting their flaws along with their strengths.

Valena mentioned this word often in class. It emphasized freedom and emotion. It stood for fantasy, for intensity. It represented an unrealistic optimism toward the future and toward everyone and everything one encountered. It meant accepting imperfection.

So that was how her teachers had seen her when she was young.

The star paths and the Milky Way above were still as beautiful as ever. She had once spent an entire year on a small boat drifting along this river of time, yet she had never grown tired of it.

She suddenly remembered the expressions on Lightchaser's and Ash Cinders' faces when they came to pick her up and boarded that boat. It had been priceless. It was the first time she had seen the same exhausted despair on both teachers' faces, the kind that made one want to die on the spot.

After sitting on that boat for a whole year in such a boring place, after finally retrieving her with great effort, they had not even had time to rest before being dragged right back onto it again.

Rita let out a soft laugh, but it quickly faded.

The fleeting joy turned hollow.

She knew exactly why. The existence of world skills and war skills had stripped her of the ability to amuse herself.

The panic and helplessness she had felt the first time she obtained an invasion sequence surged back and swallowed her whole.

She did not reject killing. Give her a reason, and she could kill an alien race without hesitation.

Even without a reason, it was fine. Killing meant equipment and experience. What better justification could there be?

But she hated war. She hated war for any reason.

For a long time, she had thought leveling monsters and war were not all that different.

Only after truly stepping onto a battlefield did she realize how wrong she was.

Human lives became cheaper than copper coins. One skill, and players could die without a sound.

What equated to war was never leveling or loot. It was death and screams.

The war cruise ship passed a dilapidated, gray world dock. Hanging above it was a strange moon shaped like an avocado.

Rita raised her hand as if to gently touch that moon. She spread her fingers, letting the light of the star paths slip through them and fall into her eyes. Her gaze drifted to her ring finger, and she thought of the line of text on SmokeTune's hand.

"War and lamentation leave me unable to bloom."

Was that her future?

After gaining divine talents, you and I are happy Fools.

At first contact with the game, everyone is a Player.

The more you know, the more you Suffer.

When everything you experience turns into Nightmare, you step into the Abyss.

Beyond the Abyss stands the Demon King.

Only by becoming a Demon King do you earn the right to be an Overlord.

Would she become an outstanding leader like Mistblade?

When Mistblade provoked her earlier that day, Rita had not sensed even a trace of pleasure or pride from her. Only endless pain.

Was she meant to become the same?

This day felt unbearably long. She had never lived through a day like this before.

When she entered this game, she had been brimming with confidence. She had prepared escape routes for everything. If the wager truly failed, she was willing to shatter and die together with BS.

So much backbone. Rather die than surrender.

But Maple Syrup's moment of vulnerability had struck her heart like a heavy blow, leaving her chest tight, almost making her retch blood. She had never asked the ordinary players whether they were willing to trade surrender for a chance to live. She had never asked whether the children under sixteen were willing to leave their homeland.

She had assumed that the players who were willing to fight to the death on the day of the BS war would still be willing to die together with BS in a second war.

She thought, fine then. Take a step back.

When war truly arrived, she would call for a vote on the battlefield.

If more than half the players were willing to join Lania Kaia, she would bow her head to her pride.

What did twenty percent of Divine Game rewards matter? She could clear out the leadership of Lania Kaia just like Dawn Cicada did.

Besides, what if she won the wager?

But the appearance of war skills and world skills, and the information Mistblade provided, stabbed her a second time.

There was no escape.

There was no pure land in this world.

Even winning the wager would only grant temporary peace. Even if the Divine Game seemed to be nearing its end, there might still be decades, even centuries ahead. To protect BS, she would have to find a way to invade other worlds to obtain war skills or even world skills. Otherwise, destruction was inevitable.

If she lost the wager and joined Lania Kaia, she and the players of BS would still be sent to the battlefield.

Lania Kaia had been so eager to shatter BS precisely because it wanted to complete the invasion before she grew strong. If the timeline stretched out, Lania Kaia would be dragged down by BS.

As long as BS occupied Lania Kaia's invasion sequence and remained unbroken, Lania Kaia could not invade other worlds. For Mistblade and Wither, who knew the truth about war skills and world skills, that was absolutely unacceptable.

So what about her and BS?

Even if she won the wager and gained two years of development time, did she have the courage to start a war during that period?

Mistblade had already handed her the reasons for invasion.

But in the early stages of invasion, ordinary players would inevitably become expendable material and experience for foreign worlds. In the later stages, she would need to personally destroy a civilization.

Could she bear that? Would she dare bear that sin?

How was she supposed to protect the world and her people while also preserving herself and the peace in her heart?

Rita's thoughts descended into chaos. At times she saw a future where she fought for Lania Kaia after defeat. At other times, a future where BS was forced to invade other worlds.

She steadied her slightly trembling hand and hid it within her sleeve.

Staring at the shattered moon that had reached the stern of the ship, Rita forced what little composure she had left and used Cut the Moonlight on it.

A sharp pain tore through her right eye. At the same moment, Wrathful Moon flew out of the gacha machine and hovered by her ear. The lantern gently pressed against her right temple. A long strand of moonlight with no visible end began to stream out from her tightly shut right eye and coil into the lampshade.

You are being watched. You are being watched. You are being watched.

Rita had no capacity to care about those voices. It felt as if something had been carved out of her eye.

Cat's Ideal emerged as well, accompanied by the sound of gentle waves, circling around her.

She did not avoid it. Not only because of the abnormalities of the two divine relics, but also because…

How much worse could things possibly get?

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