If I truly wanted to leave, no force in the Demon Realm could have stopped me.
Between my innate authority as a royal and the billion shadows lurking in my silhouette, I could have marched out the front gates with a brass band.
Honestly, I didn't have to act like a fugitive running away from a shotgun wedding. I could have slaughtered anyone who stood in my way.
But that wasn't the point.
Violence leaves a trail. Power attracts attention.
If I wanted to live an ordinary life with my son—a life away from the power-hungry eyes of the Demon King, the nobles, and the inevitable heroes of the human world—I had to completely peel off my identity.
Vivienne Vasta Astra had to remain in the palace, while I disappeared into the wind.
So, I had no other choice.
I turned to Miya. She was one of my elite shadows, a peculiar entity with the ability to shapeshift into a solid, tangible form.
I left her on the throne, draped in my finest silk robes, instructing her to maintain the icy silence the villainess was known for.
Meanwhile, I slipped out the back.
I wasn't dressed in royal finery. I wore the tattered, hardened leather of a lesser demon, my face smeared with ash and grime.
I blended into a raiding party of low-level monsters heading toward the human settlements on the border.
The journey was brutal.
The ground in the Demon Realm was not made for walking. It was jagged rock and scorched earth, heating up the soles of my boots until they felt like they were melting.
The caravan of lesser demons moved with a swaying, jerky rhythm, and the stench of their unwashed bodies was enough to make my eyes water.
There were moments when the rough path jarred my bones, sending waves of anxiety through my chest.
'Is the baby okay? Is this too much shaking?'
Fear, sharp and irrational, spiked in my gut. I considered calling Jada, my winged shadow beast, to fly me straight to the Human Realm. It would be smooth. It would be fast. It would be comfortable.
But it would also be a beacon. A giant shadow dragon flying across the border would alert every watchtower within a thousand miles.
I bit my lip, forcing myself to endure the march.
I was kind of surprised by how quickly I had accepted this role. When I first woke up in this body, I thought my affection for the child was simply because I was a fan of the story.
I had a secret crush on the protagonist when I read the manhwa on Earth. I assumed this protective feeling was just a remnant of that fandom.
But no.
As I trudged through the red dust, hand hovering over my stomach, I realized the protagonist fangirl was dead. She didn't exist anymore.
In her place was a mother.
The shift was visceral. It wasn't about his destiny or his cool powers. It was about the tiny life knitting itself together inside me.
I couldn't wait to finally see him come out. I wanted to count his fingers. I wanted to kiss his chubby cheeks. I wanted to feed him my breast milk and watch him fall asleep in my arms.
The notion of a tiny, high-pitched voice calling me 'momma' was intoxicating. It hit me harder than any drug.
It excited me more than anything I had experienced in my previous life. My brain was already running a marathon, making millions of plans for every stage of his life.
Nursery colors, first words, sword training, how to politely reject crazy girls—I seriously had to take it easy.
Hell, but I couldn't.
So, is this what it feels like to be a mom? This constant, low-level hum of anxiety mixed with overwhelming love?
I tried to distract myself. The tension building up in me because of my unborn child was making my Qi unstable. I needed to focus on something else.
I turned my thoughts to my class.
In this world, power was dictated by the heavens. Every person would eventually awaken a Martial Spirit. The variety was endless: Weapon, Beast, Elemental, Bloodline, or the rare Special type.
The class one awakened depended entirely on this Martial Spirit.
The original Vivienne was an anomaly. She had no Martial Spirit. Instead, she had a terrifying, innate mutation—the ability to control the shadows of dead beings.
Because of this, everyone in the Demon Realm assumed she would eventually awaken a 'Shadow Mage' class. It was the only logical progression.
The Demon King, the nobles, even the commoners knew that Vivienne Vasta Astra was destined to be a Queen of Darkness.
Since that was the prevailing belief, me awakening the 'Paparazzi' class was actually the perfect shield.
It severed the link to my identity.
Furthermore, there was a biological secret about the villainess that few understood. Albeit born to a demon mother, Vivienne didn't have a demonic core. She had zero compatibility with Demonic Qi.
She couldn't absorb the ambient energy of this realm. That was why, in the original story, the villainess was considered physically weak and frail until she left home. Her individual power was non-existent without her shadows.
But the moment she stepped into the Human Realm in the original plot, she discovered the truth.
Her body was built for Immortal Qi.
Once she realized that, she cultivated diligently, her power skyrocketing to terrifying levels in a short time. She became a powerhouse not just because of her army, but because she herself became a force of nature.
I reviewed the details of the 'Paparazzi' class that my brain had automatically imprinted when the system chimed.
With a thought, I summoned my Martial Spirit.
I almost choked on my own saliva when a literal DSLR camera appeared in my hand.
"What the fuck."
The curse slipped out, loud and harsh in the silent march.
Several lesser demons turned their heads. Their eyes, glowing with dull red light, fixed on the strange black object in my hand.
Lesser demons were mindless creatures. They didn't have intelligence, only instinct and hunger. They saw something new, and their first instinct was to check if it was edible or a threat.
I bared my teeth at them, letting a sliver of the villainess's killing intent leak out.
They flinched. The instinct to survive overrode their curiosity. They turned away, shuffling back into line, continuing our journey toward the border.
I looked down at the object.
It was palm-sized. Solid black plastic and glass. A 50mm "Nifty Fifty" prime lens attached to a compact body. It felt heavy, comforting, and utterly ridiculous in a fantasy setting.
I brought up the interface to read its first skill again.
[Skill: Ban]
The description divided the skill into two distinct categories: Fair Commands and Unfair Commands.
Fair Commands were debuffs. They issued an order to reduce simple properties of an opponent. I could command them to decrease their speed, lower their magic power, or dull their senses. It was a tax on their stats.
Unfair Commands were absolute. These were hard stops. I could order a property to halt entirely. Make the opponent unmovable. Silence their casting. Blind their sight.
The cost, however, was the limiting factor.
I was currently a Qi Gathering First Stage cultivator. My reserves were pathetic.
According to the system, I could use Fair Commands five times before my Immortal Qi ran dry. Unfair Commands? I could maybe squeeze out two before I passed out from exhaustion.
And there was a catch.
To activate the command, I had to physically click the shutter and take a photo of my opponent with the camera.
This was kind of lame. Not going to lie.
Imagine being in a death match, swords clashing, spells flying, and I have to stop, frame a shot, and go click.
But strangely, this lameness excited me.
It didn't require swinging a sword or chanting ancient incantations. It required framing, timing, and capturing the moment.
This was something I was an expert at. I had spent a lifetime hunting celebrities, waiting hours for that one split-second of vulnerability.
Currently, my dantian was empty. The Demon Realm was void of Immortal Qi, so I couldn't recharge or practice. It was like trying to charge a solar panel in a cave.
But we were close.
The red dust was thinning. The air was smelling less like blood and more like fresh leaves. In half a day, I would breach the barrier to the Human Realm.
Once I crossed that line, the atmosphere would change. The Immortal Qi would flood my system, and I could finally test my class.
I once again touched my belly, rubbing the rough fabric of my disguise in slow circles.
'Baby, momma is going to a bright place. No more red skies. I will feed you good food after reaching there. Don't be angry about the walking, please?'
A sudden warmth bloomed in my womb.
It wasn't movement—it was too early for that—but a sensation of comfort, a spiritual acknowledgment. It was enough to dispel the worry that had been gnawing at my gut.
He was okay. He was strong.
Albeit knowing he was just an embryo right now, that connection felt more real than the ground beneath my feet.
I let out a long breath, wiping sweat from my forehead.
What to do... my first time as a mother, and it was already this exhausting. But looking at the horizon where the red sky began to fade into blue, I knew I would walk a thousand miles if that's what it took.