Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)

636. Let The Red Hunt of the White Wolf Begin

“Out of every ‘Us’ and ‘Me’, you have always compared all of us to ‘Her’. Your own daughter didn’t fit the form you wanted. It all must be ‘Her’ in your eyes.”

A brief flash of abstraction appeared in the dark.

It was a smoldering light. Cracks ran through it as she felt her body begin to shift, as did the world around her.

“No. It was never just you.”

Frost raised a hand to touch her hair, pulling at strands that were black and gold. Suddenly, they grew long enough to touch her toes. Then, she stared up into the ceiling, finding an array of abstract stars.

“While I was trying to fight for my own life to change my world for the better, you sat idly believing it would have changed something. But all that did was cause my own Cycle to repeat.”

Her strands of hair began to turn white. At no point could the others be heard, for Frost only sought the star that was laid before her. Neither could they intervene.

“Concepts, ideas, and tales not belonging to me attach themselves to my back like they were always meant to be. And you allowed it, Michaela. You allowed me to fall into this dark place. All of ‘Her’ suffers because of you. All of this world has made ‘Us’ suffer because of the things we are not.”

Frost’s eyes moved down as she blinked again, and before her arose an obsidian monolith made from Looking Glass.

//////// < WARNING > ////////

< The Will of the Amalgam Has Risen to the First State >

< Unfair Tale has manifested as the First State >

//////// < EXTREME WARNING > ////////

< Unfair Tale is experiencing INSTABILITY >

The Looking Glass held a myriad of colors. Even wavelengths that were not perceivable to the human eye were seen refracting in its iridescent material. Frost could not tell if it was an illusion, or if a Looking Glass had truly emerged on the Floor of Judgement thanks to the manifestation of the Unstable Unfair Tale.

It ultimately mattered little to her as she peered deep into the dark abyss past its colorful shell.

“Within the mirror I only see a star. I know within my heart exactly what I am. But the Looking Glass tells me of other ‘Mes’ from tales and selfish desires to build convenient lies.”

Though Frost had already manifested the Unfair Tale, her body had taken a different form. Her hair had grown out to reach past her feet, and her emotions only further deteriorated the longer she wore the Unfair Tale.

//////// < WARN…??? > ////////

Then, her apparel took the form of a dress, and her appearance changed again. The long hair shrivelled up just past her neck.

“Fictitious lies and a call from elsewhere brought down a star defined by nonsensical wants.”

“… and why? The people that died that day could have lived if people tried to look a little deeper and saw that I wasn’t a monster that burned down worlds. The people I gave my hand to would’ve still been able to see the stars to this day.”

“Neither was I born a murderer until the day they turned me into a necessary villain. A creature from a tale to fit their own narrative. They must always be right. Tell me, Arbiter – a God of the Old World – Why must the Captured Star submit to the collective call of humanity? To bear their tragedies and tales?”

Frost’s body flickered through varying fairytales as the sound of a stream could be heard from somewhere. It was a river, and swimming in it were the tales that came from the Looking Glass.

//////// < WA…. ING > ////////

“Why must I wear them, and why must I be blamed?”

“I ended up in the same dark place again.”

“Judged for things I never committed.”

“Isn’t it unfair? That since the beginning, I never really had a choice on what was going on throughout ‘our’ iterations?”

“Is this another tale I must endure? I only just broke free from my own.”

“And yet…”

“I can hear them all. A collective cry.”

“’Save us.’ ‘A star must be born.’ ‘I need someone to hate.’ ‘I wish this was real.’ ‘The Witch in the green city needs to be stopped.’ ‘Give me a prince of my own to wake me up from my eternal sleep.’ ‘I want a mercenary to kill the big bad wolf.’”

“Selfish desires brought down the Captured Star.”

“It was dipped into the Rivers carrying their tales.”

“But will they listen?”

“No. None can hear the woes of the characters forced into those fantasies.”

“The flow of the River swallows me whole, wrapping me with a new tale I must perform.”

Frost’s body was engulfed in light before she was swallowed by darkness. The world of the Floor of Judgement changed in the shape of her emotional woes. The white hair she donned turned to a deep, crimson red.

Bloodshot eyes stared back at the Arbiter as a black forest surrounded them. The trees were made out of cardboard cutouts, like what one would find in a play. The world was shaped like a stage in fact, with the monolithic Looking Glass staring in the background with a single speck of light like the eye of a Demon.

And past it ran a river into the furthest edge of the world, allowing abstract colors to run through the black forest.

< “But I will not die here as the antagonist of this wretched tale.” >

< “You and I, Miss White Wolf, cannot coexist. I must hunt you down before you swallow me whole too.” >

< “Be damned by my infinite hatred, for all the ‘Us’ you have swallowed.” >

//////// < WARNING > ////////

< WOE OF THE FALLEN STAR >

< THE ARBITER’S TRUMPET WAILS >

< FROST’S CORRUPTION EVENT HAS BEGUN >

“Frost. My words were not meant to lead you astray. Neither do I believe in tales. Cycles on the other hand have proven to burn me.

Go ahead, Frost. Unleash your wrath. I will happily play the villain for your sake. I hope you will learn that wrath is as much of an ally as it is an enemy.”

On the ground, halfway between both the Corrupted Frost and the Arbiter was the Piece of Paradise.

“… And you will learn that the dull thwack of forgiveness will hurt more than the sharpest blade. My pride still kills me. Frost. Shatter it. Break it down. Let us both rejoice in the fruition of this bloodbath.”

The Arbiter extended her arm, wielding the False Price of Paradise.

“That way we can both move on.”