"When the false world begins to crack, only those who carry the legacy of ancient will can glimpse the fracture of truth."
The upper floor of the Tower of Yggdrasil lay in ruins. The walls were fractured, glowing with light like open wounds yet to be stitched. The air still carried traces of battle—searing heat, the stench of metal, and ash clinging to skin like the residue of something that should never have burned.
The central chamber had fallen into silence—a breathless hush, waiting for something to be spoken.
The Last Six—Arven, Syrra, Veyra, Lorrick, and Nolien—stood in a circle around The Empress. Their armor was stained with blood, some of it not their own. Their breathing was still heavy, bodies tense, yet unmoving.
For in the air, from a vortex of light that twisted like a torn dimension, a woman emerged.
Her silver-white gown shimmered with the reflection of dead stars. Her face… was that of The Empress.
Arven tightened his grip on his sword, a massive shield hanging from his arm. Syrra raised her staff, though her right hand trembled. Lorrick stood hunched, blood trailing from his temple.
But The Empress didn't move. She only stared—silent, but sharp.
Syrra: "Is this… her twin?"
Lorrick: "Not an illusion. But this aura… it's not human."
The Empress: "…So you've come, at last."
The figure smiled gently. But her eyes were voids—reflecting no light, revealing no bottom.
World Will: "I told you I would return when the time came, didn't I?"
The Last Six exchanged glances. The tension spiked—they didn't understand what was being said, but it felt like they were witnessing something older than language itself.
Arven: "Who… are you really? Why do you wear The Empress's face?"
World Will: "Because this face is not just a mirror. It is the symbol of a will that refused to bend, to be copied, or to be caged. I borrowed this form, because she was the first to defy being a puppet."
The Empress stepped forward. Her voice was cold, slicing through the silence.
The Empress: "Enough introductions. Tell them. They deserve to know."
World Will: "Of course."
She raised her hand.
Reality tore like paper. Around them, the world peeled back like curtains. Images floated—worlds like bubbles, shimmering, then bursting one by one. The sound of destruction without noise. The silhouettes of gods warring in a sky without sky.
A flash: the land without color, the sky without limits. The first world was not born from light, but from will—pure, wild, formless, and absolute. Miriad World, a place where laws were created, not discovered.
World Will: "Before your world existed, there was the Miriad World. Not a planet, not a dimension, but an expanse of will, where gods forged the laws of reality. But they destroyed it themselves, torn apart by endless war."
Another fragment appeared. Worlds shattered like thrown glass. Shards of existence scattered like the ash of eternity.
World Will: "From those ruins, something was born—not a god, not a being. Just the remnant of ambition. It came to be known as... the False God."
Lorrick: "And it was the one who created… the Little Garden?"
World Will: "By stealing the World Seed—the last seed of reality—it tried to mimic the Miriad World. But without true will, it created a smaller, more controlled version… the Miriad Miniature Garden."
Syrra: "So the Little Garden is…"
World Will: "An incubator. A game meant to trap human souls. Power, levels, magic… all illusions to drown you. Your souls are fragmented and slowly devoured by the World Seed so the false world can grow."
Veyra clenched her fists. Beneath her silence, rage simmered like a beast long caged—disgusted, wounded, ready to lash out.
Veyra (whispers): "It was all… just a game? We're just cattle?"
World Will: "No. You—The Last Six—and her…"
She looked at The Empress.
World Will: "…are failures in a system that couldn't digest you. Your wills were too strong. Too… free."
Nolien, usually quiet, spoke up.
Nolien: "So all this time, we weren't just fighting monsters… we were fighting the entire system itself."
World Will: "Exactly. The Tower, the Dungeons, the Bosses—they're all digestive tracts."
The Empress: "And the False God can't control time. It only loops patterns—victory, tragedy, betrayal—to keep the energy flowing."
Arven: "Then why keep repeating it?"
World Will: "Because it cannot create. It can only mimic. And as this world grew, I—the World Will of the Miriad Miniature Garden—began resisting from within."
Syrra gritted her teeth.
Every spell she had learned. Every achievement she was proud of. All of it… fake?
Syrra: "Then why us? Why not destroy it all?"
World Will: "Because you are byproducts it never anticipated. Shards of true will latched onto your souls. And she—The Empress—was the first fracture. The heir it tried to destroy from the beginning."
The Empress remained silent. But in her eyes was something—not fury, not sorrow. A weariness that could never be shared.
World Will: "You don't have to be saviors. But if you want to kill the False God, and take back the Little Garden… then don't fight me. I am the reflection of the last will of a world long lost."
Arven looked at the World Will—and for the first time, he didn't see an enemy. He saw something… struggling from within, like they were.
Arven: "And if we believe you?"
World Will: "Then the Miriad Miniature Garden will be yours. Not the mimic's."
The Empress raised her sword. From its tip, light etched a strange symbol in the air: a circular line with a dot in the center—like an eye beginning to open. Not to see the world, but to rejudge it.
The Empress: "This is not the end. It is a warning. We are not heroes. We are anomalies that refused to be consumed."
She turned to The Last Six.
The Empress: "Tonight, the blood you spilled wasn't just to survive. It was to cancel the birth of a false world."
World Will: "And to revive a will once shattered."
The World Will's body began dissolving into light. But before vanishing, she looked at The Empress.
A faint vision appeared—a throne in the void, empty yet waiting. Light formed its shape: the Throne of Origin.
World Will (whispering): "I will wait… for the day the Throne of Origin is used once more… to write a new world."