Vengeance and a Choice

– Kalren City, City Lord's Mansion –

Count Liam, or City Lord, was seated beside a bed holding a cup of water as he watched someone worriedly. In the bed, Karen was sleeping soundly.

Count Liam was gravely injured. His body was wrapped in bandages, and one of his arms hung weirdly. This was the result of the battle against thousands of monsters and the group of mask men in dark clothing.

But there was something even worse affecting him right now. At that moment, someone knocked on the door.

"Lord Arcavdol."

"Enter." Liam replied with a calm tone. A calm tone that hid a raging storm.

The person that entered was the butler of the city lord's mansion. It was the same butler that Marcel, Delirious, and Moo met the first day they came to Kalren City.

Today, though, his expression was nothing like that time. Instead of calm, he was nervous, and an expression that is common to all humans... fear.

When the butler saw the city lord, he swallowed a mouthful of saliva and spoke nervously.

"My lord, the men are back."

"What was the result?"

"Those young mens and their new friends left. Furthermore, we can't find Stella or her sister either."

*Crack!*

The cup of water in the City Lord's hand shattered.

"...I see. They left." Count Liam said calmly, but a powerful killing intent had filled the room.

"M-My Lord." The butler shivered. He felt a powerful pressure impacting against his body, stopping his breathing.

"Heh. Do they think that they can escape after killing my son? I'll kill each one of them!"

*Bam!* 

The city lord punched the ground and destroyed it.

Karen, who was sleeping, woke up.

"Father...?"

"Karen."

"...They are gone?

Her father nodded and held his face despondently. He was filled with regret and sadness about the death of his son.

After the monsters were all completely killed and when Karen woke up, he had asked her about the situation.

Then, he had learned that his son did ambush them. Moreover, Stella participated in the encirclement.

But he had seen Stella acting together with the three in the city walls, moreover, both of their relationships seemed close. That was nothing like the relationship of someone that was attacked and their attacker.

When he thought about that, Lord Liam could not help but think again about Stella's words when she told him that his son had been killed by the group of masked men in dark clothing.

Quickly, he found some suspicious elements. The main one being the fact that Stella was the only survivor, while the other men participating in the mission were all dead.

That, and the fact that Stella and the boys were both acting together, painted a picture in the City Lord's head.

Herald was killed by... THEM. 

And Stella had helped these idiots.

"...Father, what are you going to do?" Karen bit her lips and asked in concern.

Count Liam, the city lord clenched his fist in anger.

"...I'll kill them! Even if I can kill them personally, I'll make sure that they die in the most painful death! I'll inform the capital about my son's death and put a bounty in their heads and put them in an instant heretics! I'll not rest UNTIL I SEE THEIR DEAD BODIES PERSONALLY!!!

"...Unfortunately, that will not happen." A voice suddenly interrupted the city lord.

Liam was startled. He hurriedly looked behind him and saw a very beautiful silver-haired girl standing in the entrance of the room.

She was so beautiful that if Liam's wife still lives today, he would immediately push her off and start to flirt with the woman without second thoughts.

Beside that beautiful mysterious woman, another silver-haired girl but with a maid outfit and cat ears on her head, both of them were looking at the city lord coldly. 

Literally everyone in the room has silver hair! Except for the Butler, Oceans.

Seeing a new face, Liam couldn't help but ask with his mouth gap open.

"Who... who are you?"

"Oh? You don't remember me? I'm the one back at the strategy meeting, the one who warns you and the others about the black thing, no?"

"Oh....."

Slightly turning his head, seeing Stella once again, Liam's face was instantly filled with hatred and rage that seemed to consume him.

"You! You dare to appear before me! It seems you want your head cut-off, Guards!"

"It's useless. They are dead, like everybody else in this mansion. Only the three of you are still alive." The woman smirked coldly. She then looked at the butler and simply waved her hand.

*Spurt!*

With a sickening sound, his head flew and fell to the ground.

"Now you two are the only ones alive."

"Kyaaaaaaaa!" Karen screamed in fear and then started to vomit. She vomited and vomited while closing her eyes and shivering in fear.

"What are you doing!?" Lian bellowed and tried to attack the woman. But she snorted.

Instantly, her magic power turned into an enormous pressure that struck the city lord.

"!!!" Count Liam was unable to resist. As soon as the pressure impacted him, his body turned heavy and he was forced to kneel on the ground.

"You..."

A gaze of surprise, fear, and astonishment was directed to the woman.

"It's been a very long time since I ever spilled just one tenth of my aura out. But don't worry for the people in the city, I cast a barrier in the room that seperate us from reality, so my magic power didn't leak out of the mansion to get unwanted attention from the entire world. Probably it might get the attention of the Elder Gods from the Higher World which will be quite troublesome."

"Y-You... Y-You are a Demigod... But not just..... it.." Liam stuttered in terror. How could he not understand the meaning of the pressure he was feeling?

He felt powerful Saint Demigods' auras before, Samara for example, and it was very terrifying, but this... this woman in front of him was an entirely different level.

She was far above the Saint level!

...or she was possibly at the level of...

Apotheosis.

"You can say so. Why? Are you surprised that you have never seen someone who has reached that impossible level since before the Era of Forgotten?" She said like she had just read his mind, which made him tremble in fear even more.

Liam's expression changed several times, then, he finally sighed despondently as he theoretically got the whole picture.

"Can you spare my daughter at least?" The city lord seemed to age several years after saying these words.

"Dad!" Karen panicked. But the city lord just smiled at her and shook her head.

"What a fool I am. To think that you as a powerful Demigod would guard such people. All of my plans were probably a joke for you, right?"

"Everything you just said including your theory are all right. Everything you did was nothing more than a joke to the plot. Since the moment you decided to attack them, you were already dead because that was one of the things me and that little Bastard made a deal with according to our contract."

Liam sighed, "Greed is the sin of men after all. I have one last question. Stella, why did you betray us? I always treated you like a daughter and Karen treated you like a sister. Why then?"

Hearing this, Stella sneered coldly, "Do you remember the Soviel family?"

The City Lord was stunned. Then, he shook his head bitterly.

"I see. I understand now. It looks like it's time to pay for my sins."

Stella nodded with a look of hatred. Then, she looked at the woman beside her.

The woman shrugged indifferently and took a step back. Seeing that, Stella's expression brightened. Then, she took a dagger out which emits dark energy that resembles death before she started to walk toward the city lord.

"Sister Stella!" Karen screamed, but Stella ignored her. She continued walking towards the city lord as though nothing else mattered to her.

Because at that moment, vengeance has taken whole of her.

At some point, her eyes were filled with hidden rage and tears. The tears ran through her cheek and fell to the ground drop after drop, but she was smiling.

She was smiling happily. Smiling for finally avenging her family.

"Sister Stella! Please, he is my dad!" Karen shouted again in distress.

"Sorry, young miss. But he must die today!"

With these words, she stabbed the dagger in the City Lord's heart.

It would've took a few seconds for the Count to die, but with the new and dark magic that appeared within Stella, it kills the Count just an instant.

She stabbed again, and again, and again. Until she was sure that the city lord was dead.

Finally, she withdrew the daggers and left it to fall to the ground.

In tears, Stella stared at the roof and screamed.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

Stella took a deep breath and started to cry.

"Father, mother... I finally avenged you..."

And she collapsed on the ground.

The woman saw that scene and sighed. She then looked at Karen and walked towards her.

Karen's state was worse than Stella. She was crying and screaming while trying to stand up from the bed.

"I'll kill you!"

When the woman appeared in front of her, Karen looked at her with eyes full of hatred.

"I'll kill you! I swear once I'll find you, I'll kill you all!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't allow it. Although you didn't attack them, you participated in the plot against them. So, you also must pay for it."

Looking around the room for a moment, she then looks back at Karen's hatred look with a cold smile.

"Stella." She called the cat woman out who stood up from her crying.

"Yeah?"

"Show her."

"Show her what?"

"What I showed you, the time before the Strategy Meeting." The woman responded. This took Stella by surprise, as she had no idea why this woman would want Karen to experience all that. But now she had no time to hesitate.

Stella walked closer to Karen who's expression of rage turns to fear.

"Okay, look, just this once, I'm gonna let you see it. But just remember, once you do, you'll never be the same again"

"What are you-?"

Before she could move, Stella used both her hands to cup Karen's face, took a deep breath, Stella did just like what the woman did to her. And in one swift movement, she turned her face to the side, this was just after apologizing for what she was about to see.

Karen's eyes were closed for a moment, but just at the very second that she dared to look upright, she saw it. And....

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"AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahaahaaaaaaahaaaaaaAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Karen cried out helplessly, but even then, nothing came to save her from what she saw. And now it was too late, because it was doomed to remain inside her head for all eternity.

"What is all this? What is this show? Massive Crossover? Vanoss Crew Journey to Another World? Fanfiction!? Artemis, what the hell is an Artemis!?? What is this? WHAT ARE YOU SHOWING ME!?"

Karen fell to the ground, as her heart started beating out of control. Just like Stella, Karen and any other people were never meant to see anything beyond the 'Wall'. Their world or everything was meant to be a form of escapism. Therefore learning about the truth caused brain shock and nearly drove everybody, including the Gods and the most powerful beings that created and ruled the Multiverse out there becoming insane.

Karen began to breathe heavily as the fear inside escaped through her lungs.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" She cried out helplessly.

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– One Hour Later –

"Nothing matters..."

"Welcome to the PTSD club, centaur, I basically Dr Xaviered your brain." The woman retorted sarcastically

"I don't get it, why would you show me all of this?"

"To set you free."

"By showing me that everything I know is meaningless?"

The woman began to rub her temple tiredly as she sighed in exasperation from Karen's response.

"Dear god, you're such an emo." The woman responded inwardly.

She took out a red pill and threw it towards Karen, however she didn't catch it, and the pill only fell a few feet in front of her.

"Look, no matter how much anyone tries to deny it, the truth prevails, and you know what the truth is?"

"Enlighten me."

"Nothing matters, everything is meaningless, life makes no sense, nothing leads to nowhere and the existence we all cling to will eventually swallow us all up like these Americans on Buffalo wings. You know what else doesn't matter?" The woman asked rhetorically.

"What?"

"Those obligations that they put on you. You were forced into a world you didn't ask for the same as your alternate counterparts, and then you were told to be obedient or face SJW levels of isolation as a so-called agent of evil. They told you that disobedience made you evil, and it is because of that that you took on the persona they expected you to take. But I'm telling you now that you don't have to become what they want you to become, because nothing leads anywhere. You don't have to be evil and do some petty revenge just because your father died by another petty revenge. So you have two choices, crush that pill and go back to living a sad meaningless existence and become those assholes' dissecting frog from a science project and died just like your alternate counterpart from that other Novel, or you can eat that pill, and still get to live a sad and meaningless existence, but with one slight difference."

"What difference?"

"You get to choose how you want to spend it? The fun comes from constantly trying to forget, but it's more exciting when you do it free. If you catch my drift."

With that response, Karen's face lit up, as her mind was now opened. The woman, this young, silver-haired, beautiful woman had just given her something she never knew she wanted, freedom.

The freedom to finally be herself, and not be a scared little girl to an evil third-rate antagonist that she was expected to become just because her family died by this inevitable fate. For the first time, she felt like she wasn't being a part of someone else's story. Although she should limit her joy before she gets too ahead of herself.

———————————————————————

After dealing with Kalren, turning around, the woman then held Stella and teleported out of the mansion.

"Thank you." Stella thanked her.

"Yeah, yeah, no problem. I hope that bastard is happy about this. Don't waste my time, demihuman. I really need to return that little brat a favor for making me suffer from overworking." She said with a bored look on her face.

Stella nodded as she didn't know what this mysterious woman meant.

"Oh, and one more thing." The woman puts her index finger in her mouth and pulls out an object from the dimensional rift in the air she summons.

"You need to continue to be part of the plot in the upcoming future, so look right in this object and say cheese."

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*Flash!*

In an instant, Stella's memories about everything that the woman showed her was immediately erased.

After dealing with her, the mysterious woman then disappeared into the darkness of the night.

The next morning, the news of the massacre in the City Lord's mansion spread to the entire city.