Chapter Two - The Queen Has Risen
Era of Concordance, Year 812 – Day 218 of the Twelvefold Cycle
Deep Duskhorn
Palace of Starlight – Rebirth
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Warm air brushed Ruki's cheeks, carrying the soft scent of lavender.
She inhaled on reflex.
Her lungs filled on their own, smooth and deep. For a long heartbeat she lay there in shock, afraid that if she moved, the breath would catch and the pain would come roaring back.
It did not.
There was no hospital ceiling above her. No yellowed tiles. No buzzing fluorescents. Instead, she stared up into a sky drowned in stars, layered so thick it felt like she was floating inside them rather than beneath them.
Ruki lay on polished white stone that hummed gently under her back. The vibration was faint but steady, like a pulse under the surface.
Her fingers twitched against the stone.
They moved cleanly, without tremor.
For the first time in years, she was not in pain.
Ruki swallowed and waited for the familiar burn in her throat.
It never came.
"Where am I," Ruki whispered.
Her own voice sounded wrong to her, clearer, not chewed up by plastic and tubes.
Ruki pushed one hand against the stone to pull herself upright and froze when footsteps answered instead.
The steps echoed from somewhere above. Each one was soft, but heavy enough that the air itself seemed to lean toward the sound. Ruki pushed herself up on her elbows, shoulders shaking more from nerves than weakness, and turned toward it.
"I know I just sent the message… did I get sucked into an event…" Ruki thought, brain grabbing for the only logic it knew.
She wet her lips and tried again.
"Misaki," Ruki croaked.
The name came out thin and ragged, but it came. No headset beep followed. No nurse's voice snapped back at her.
Nothing.
A staircase rose out of the white stone ahead of her, broad and shallow, like someone had carved a path straight out of moonlight. At the top of it stood a woman.
Ruki's breath hitched.
The woman was barefoot, toes pale against the glowing step. Her long hair fell in loose golden waves that moved like water, catching the starlight and scattering it in tiny shards. A white dress wrapped around her frame, simple in cut but edged in gold that traced careful patterns up her sides and across her shoulders. Behind her, wings of solid gold stretched out, each feather outlined in light, eclipsing half the sky.
The air around the woman felt heavier, charged, like the moment just before lightning finds a place to strike.
Every step the woman took down the stairs made the floor hum. It was subtle, but Ruki felt the thrum run through her palms and into her arms, as if the world was adjusting around this woman instead of the other way around.
"Welcome, Ruki Yusato," the woman said.
Her voice was smooth and clear, not loud, but it slid into Ruki's ears like music that had been tuned exactly for her.
Ruki could not pretend this felt like any in-game cutscene she had ever watched.
"Who are you… where am I, is this an event…" Ruki asked.
The questions tumbled out on top of each other. Her last memory was the harbor in Untold Eternity and Misaki's voice, and now she was here. The gap between those two things made her skin crawl.
"Still no Misaki," Ruki thought, chest tightening.
"No, this is not an event," the woman confirmed.
Ruki kept her eyes on the woman's face. She was not stupid. If Misaki could not hear her, something had gone very wrong on the other side.
"Was it the storm," Ruki wondered, remembering the brewing typhoon before she logged on.
Her throat tried to close around the next question. She forced it through anyway.
"Am… am I dead," Ruki asked.
She was close enough now to see details she had missed before. The woman's skin glowed with a soft warmth that made the white stone look dull by comparison. The golden crown hovering above her head cast no shadow. Her eyes were the worst part, or the best. They held a strange mix of childlike curiosity and impossible age, bright as new coins and as deep as midnight at the same time.
Ruki could not look away.
The woman reached the bottom step and stopped an arm's length away.
"Your body in that world has failed," the woman said. "The storm took the power. The machines stopped. Misaki was unable to get you out in time, and the power shut off while you were still logged in."
The woman did not flinch when she spoke Misaki's name. Her tone did not soften, but there was no cruelty in it either. Just fact.
"So yes," the woman said. "You died."
There it was.
The words did not hit like a slap. They landed like something Ruki had been bracing against for years. Like a door she had been holding shut with her back finally giving way.
Ruki's fingers dug into her thighs. Her breath came short once, twice. On the third inhale, the air slid in clean, and she held on to that instead of the panic.
"So this is…" Ruki started.
She let the rest hang.
"The crossing," the woman said. "The space between where souls travel to the afterlife."
The woman placed a hand over her own chest in a gesture that felt older than language.
"I am Liia," the woman said. "Goddess of Recreation. Keeper of souls."
The name scraped across old memory.
Ruki had seen it in lore fragments and event flavor text in Untold Eternity.
Ruki pushed herself the rest of the way to her feet.
Her legs wobbled, muscles clumsy and thin from years of doing nothing, but they held. Just standing there took more focus than most dungeons ever had. The weight of her own body felt unfamiliar, like she had logged into a new avatar.
"You're real," Ruki said.
Her voice shook, but she did not care.
"I read about you in Vel'Dranis lore," Ruki said. "But…"
Before Ruki could finish, Liia lifted one hand.
"You have questions, dear, but we do not have much time in this space for me to answer them all," Liia said. "What I can say is that my realm, Vel'Dranis, is real. What you see in your game was just partial fragments of it."
Vel'Dranis.
Hearing the name spoken like that made the hairs on Ruki's arms stand up. The game had always felt too deep, too coherent, like someone had built a real place, but hearing that it was real still punched the air out of her.
"I want to be blunt, Ruki, but only if you want to still live," Liia said. "I tend to let souls pass naturally. But you… I have watched you for a while. So I ask… do you want to live again."
Liia's eyes did not leave Ruki's face when she asked. There was no pity in them. Just assessment. Waiting. Whatever answer Ruki gave, Liia looked like she would accept it and move on.
Liia lifted her hand toward the sky.
The stars above them shivered, then bent inward, as if the whole sky had become a pool someone had just disturbed.
Liia flicked her fingers. The stars scattered back into place.
The simple motion made Ruki's stomach twist. That was not a cutscene trick. That felt like the rules of the room changing because Liia had decided they should.
"Why me," Ruki asked quietly.
Liia glanced up again.
The goddess lifted one hand fully, palm facing the sky.
The stars responded.
They rippled, then drew together in lines and shapes. Coastlines. Mountain chains. Forests. Oceans. Ruki's gamer brain recognized the pattern even before her conscious mind caught up.
A world map hung over them, glowing in pale gold. The style was different from the UI she knew, rougher, almost carved, but the outline made her stomach clench.
"That is…" Ruki started.
"Say it," Liia said.
Ruki narrowed her eyes at the glowing continent, tracing the familiar curve of its coasts.
"Vel'Dranis," Ruki said. "The main continent from Untold Eternity."
The word felt heavier here. Less like server choice, more like actual land.
The map hung in the sky like a second ceiling. Light from the lines washed over Ruki's skin, adding a faint gold tint to the white stone under her feet. From here, the borders did not just glow. They pulsed, bright in some places and sickly in others, like someone had drawn infection into the lines.
"The realm itself is older than you think," Liia said. "You have only seen parts of it, but it is a world rooted in magic and opportunity. With that opportunity come those who would abuse it."
Ruki's skin prickled.
"Sounds amazing, better than the place I came from," Ruki said. "But dangerous. This map looks worse."
From where Ruki stood, whole regions flickered like thumbnails of burning cities. Sections of the map dimmed and brightened, as if something inside them was being eaten away.
"Because it is worse," Liia said.
Liia stretched two fingers toward one section of the map that burned too brightly.
"The Holy Empire of Seravell," Liia said. "A crown and a church that call themselves pure while they burn Beastkin villages and chain what they cannot kill. They call Beastkin impure and seek to eradicate them by using the Colorbreak Companions."
Ruki watched as tiny symbols along that border flared, little bursts of light that might have been cities or battlefields.
Liia flicked her hand toward another glowing region.
"The Vel Caedryn Syndicate," Liia said. "Merchants who wrap their greed in contracts. They sell the Empire collars for enslavement and to bind the beasts. The world pretends to need them."
The color over that territory looked muddy, gold smeared with black, pulsing like a bruise.
Ruki's gaze shifted toward the lower part of the map. The swampland glow there looked uneven, like a lantern guttering in thick fog.
"And the Swamplands," Liia said softly. "Once guardians of Beastkin. Now fractured and dominated by many demi-human races."
Liia's tone flattened when she continued.
"The other races such as the Elves and Dwarves have been at arms with the Empire. The other smaller races have gone into hiding."
Ruki swallowed down a curse and tightened her hands into fists.
The whole thing looked like a late-stage server war map. Too many red zones. Not enough safe towns.
"What does that have to do with me," Ruki asked.
She kept her voice level. She was not being rude. She just wanted to know what kind of play Liia was making.
"Ruki, I am giving you an option," Liia said. "You can pass on peacefully, or…"
Liia let the word hang between them.
"Or," Ruki repeated, eyebrow lifting.
"You live again in Vel'Dranis," Liia responded.
Liia pointed to a spot on the ground next to Ruki.
Light gathered there, pooling like water, then pulling upward.
A small figure flickered into view, like someone had taken a faded painting and asked it to stand. A girl, maybe sixteen at most. Green hair, matted and dirty, clung to her face and neck. Her wrists were raw where iron chains bit into them. A tail hung limply behind her, fur slick with mud and blood. Her eyes were open, but they were not really seeing anything. Each breath she took sounded like it might be her last.
Ruki found herself on her feet, fully upright, before she even realized she had moved. Her legs felt more solid now. Her mind did not.
"Is she…" Ruki started.
The word snagged.
"She is a child of Luria," Liia said. "A Beastkin royal line that once walked alongside Colorbreak beasts when the world became unbalanced, instead of chaining them. The last of her Lurian blood sits in a slave camp on the edge of the Swamplands."
Liia's expression did not soften, but something heavy settled in her eyes.
"Her captors from the Vel Caedryn Syndicate have hunted Beastkin for the last decade," Liia said. "They starved her to keep her obedient. Today, their cruelty finally pushed her body too far. Her spirit is here as well."
Ruki looked from Liia to the girl and back again.
"So you want me to take her place," Ruki asked.
She knew the answer. The question still needed air.
The feeling in her gut did not leave. It sat there, a stubborn weight.
"I want to live," Ruki thought.
The thought did not move.
"Only if you choose to," Liia said. "I am not your parents. I am not here to decide for you."
The words came out flat, almost cold, but there was a strange mercy in that. No pressure. No guilt. Just options.
Liia stepped closer until her presence pressed against Ruki's senses like warm pressure.
"Listen carefully, Ruki Yusato," Liia said. "You have a choice. A real one."
The word choice sat between them like a stone dropped into still water.
"You can rest," Liia said. "Your soul can move on to a peace that does not ask anything more from you."
Liia gestured toward the fading girl.
"She will die as well," Liia said.
The simple sentence hung in the air longer than any speech.
"Or," Liia said, "you can step into what remains of her. You can anchor her fading spirit with your own. You can step into Vel'Dranis and push against a world being twisted by greed. You can prevent the corruption and the extinction of a race that once balanced my companions, if you decide that is worth your effort."
Liia placed a hand over Ruki's sternum.
Warmth seeped through skin and bone, steady and grounding.
"You will be you," Liia said. "Ruki Yusato. Seguri's Beast Lord. The child Misaki tried to protect. The girl who wrote her own life inside a cage."
Liia's hand shifted, pointing to the chained girl.
Ruki looked at the girl again.
The rise and fall of that thin chest was slower now. Each breath dragged.
"If I say no," Ruki said, "you do not punish me. You just let me go."
"Yes," Liia said.
"And if I say yes," Ruki said, "I wake up as her. In chains. In a war I did not start."
"Yes," Liia said. "With everything you already are. And nothing erased."
Liia said it like she was reading both options off the same list. No hint that one was morally better. Just different routes.
Silence stretched.
Ruki's mind sprinted back to the last minutes in Room 406. Misaki's hand on her shoulder. The stink of disinfectant and storm air leaking through the window. The soft click of the headset case opening. The message window. Sae and Valen's names at the top.
If things get worse and I cannot talk to you myself, please cause some hell.
It had not been a goodbye.
It had been a request. A contingency.
"I left that message for them," Ruki said, voice low. "Seguri. Misaki. The people who actually gave a damn if I woke up. They know enough to fight my parents without me."
Ruki's throat tightened again. This time it was not a machine squeezing. It was grief.
"If I go back to watch whatever comes next for them, it is just more of the same," Ruki said. "Me watching through glass. Me unable to do anything but listen to machines and news anchors tell me what my life was worth."
Ruki turned her full attention to Liia.
"You said this world is real," Ruki said. "Then even after this is resolved, I want to live freely."
Liia's mouth curved, almost into a real smile. It landed somewhere between a laugh and a curse.
"You said there was something different about her," Ruki said, nodding at the girl. "About her blood."
"Luria was one of the first lines to resonate with the weft of Vel'Dranis itself," Liia said. "Magic clung to their veins. That resonance was rare among Beastkin. Luria's bloodline held flame. You, in your game, cast lightning. That is even rarer among casters."
[Beastkin Passive: Resonant Vein.]
A familiar UI box flickered at the edge of Ruki's vision.
[Passive Skill: Resonant Vein]
Copy any non-divine spell that strikes you, with a delay.
Cooldown scales with training.
Back then, it had just been text she turned into a weapon.
A faint warmth bloomed under Ruki's skin at the center of her chest, like something old was remembering how to wake up.
"Will I still have it," Ruki asked.
"Yes," Liia said. "It is written into the vessel's blood and etched into your soul now."
Liia raised her hand again.
Three small lights drifted down from the sky, trailing thin lines of starlight. They slowed as they approached and came to a stop in the air between Ruki and Liia.
One light unfolded into a pair of simple earrings shaped like narrow, twisting leaves, metal the color of pale moonlight. Subtle engravings curled along their edges in a script Ruki did not recognize, but her chest eased just looking at them.
"The Durecast Earrings," Liia said. "Once worn by an elf who walked beside Luria's line. They are a sign older powers will recognize, whether they admit it or not. You will have to unlock their secrets."
The second light tightened into a faint sigil, a delicate pattern of interlocking circles and lines that hovered over Ruki's sternum. It hung there for a moment, then sank into her skin with a soft heat.
Ruki hissed under her breath as the warmth spread across her ribs and down her spine, not painful, but sharp.
"This is my protection," Liia said. "A ward that will answer once if the world tries to unmake you before your story has even started. It will not save you from every poor choice. It will not keep you from bleeding. It will, once, turn a killing blow into a scar and remind those watching that you are not unclaimed."
The third light did not resolve into anything solid.
It hovered just beyond Ruki's reach. When she narrowed her eyes, she thought she saw the shape of familiar glyphs inside it, the ghost of an arena crest, the echo of a spell she had once loved more than was healthy.
Ruki reached toward the light out of reflex.
The light dissolved like mist between her fingers.
"That is not for now," Liia said. "You will remember what you were capable of when the time comes."
Ruki flexed her hand, feeling the emptiness where the third gift had almost settled. The absence left a faint ache, like a missing tooth she could not stop poking with her tongue.
"Level one again," Ruki said quietly. "Is this like the game."
"Not quite," Liia said. "You will see Vel'Dranis through a system similar to your previous life. Call that a small gift. You cannot understand this world if you do not have tools that help."
Ruki huffed out a breath.
It hurt in a way that felt right. Tight, but alive.
Liia's gaze turned more distant for a moment, as if she were listening to something only she could hear far below them.
"Your time here is short," Liia said. "The girl's body is failing as we speak. I will not rush your choice, but I will not lie to you about the cost of hesitation."
Ruki looked at the girl one last time.
If Ruki walked away, that thin chest would stop rising. The tail would never twitch again. The chains would hold a cooling body until someone decided she was not worth the effort to move.
If Ruki stepped in, it would mean war.
But it also meant freedom.
"Sae… Valen…" Ruki thought. "I get the chance to live again."
Ruki lifted her chin.
"I will go," Ruki said. "But I will do this my way. I know this world, but I am not stupid enough to underestimate life. I will be no one's puppet."
Her voice shook once. She let it.
She did not look away.
"I want to live," Ruki said. "In a world where when I move, it matters. In a body that can fight back. Even if it already hurts. Even if I start in chains."
Liia's shoulders eased, just a little, like tension she had been holding finally let go.
"Then you accept," Liia said.
"I accept," Ruki said. "On my terms."
Liia laughed, quiet and bright.
"That is precisely the kind of trouble Vel'Dranis needs," Liia said.
Liia stepped forward and placed two fingers against Ruki's forehead.
Warmth spread outward from the touch, not just through bone and skin, but through something deeper. For a heartbeat, Ruki felt two rhythms trying to find each other. Her own, fast and sharp. The other, thready and weak, like a drumbeat heard through walls.
The stone under Ruki's feet shifted.
The stars above them stretched and funneled downward in a spiral. The warmth of the palace bled away, replaced by a damp chill that crawled across Ruki's arms and into her bones. The scent of lavender vanished under the stink of rot, smoke, and iron.
Ruki's stomach dropped.
The white stone cracked like glass beneath her boots. Light spilled through the fractures, not golden this time, but swamp dark and torch red.
"Ruki," Liia said.
Her voice stayed steady even as the world fell apart around them.
"When you wake, remember the signs for a beast."
Ruki clung to the words as the floor vanished.
Stone became rain.
Starlight became shouting.
Lavender became mud and blood and smoke grinding into the back of her throat.
Chains replaced the gentle hum under her spine.
And pain came roaring back.
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End of Chapter 2