A familiar voice called her name. Mirai ran toward it desperately—that faint, beloved voice belonging to the one person she longed to see smile again, even just a little, the one she ached to free from endless suffering. There he stood: a faint silhouette of white glass, long flowing white hair, empty eye sockets bleeding endlessly.

“Louis?!”

He knelt, his form slowly crumbling into fragments, his entire being teetering on the brink of collapse.

“Mirai… help me…”

“Louis!”

She ran faster, but no matter how hard she pushed, Louis remained just out of reach.

She sprinted harder and harder until she tripped and watched him drift even farther away.

“No…! Louis…! Please wake up…! Please wake up, Louis!”

Tears streamed down her face as she crawled toward him, sobbing. The surrounding darkness suddenly shifted, coalescing into countless golden-red eyes.

Enormous, twisted draconic heads emerged one after another, glaring at her with vicious, mocking smiles that revealed rows of razor-sharp teeth.

“Who are you…?! What is this?!”

As she faced them, the heads regarded her with deeper contempt, their laughter growing louder as they slowly closed in.

“I am the idealized failure.”

“I am the longing for something that cannot be attained.”

“I am the self-loathing and self-hatred.”

“I am the agony and despair.”

“I am the doubt and envy.”

“I am the Abyssal Dragon Tree of Ruin.”

Mirai’s eyes widened in horror. She saw now that every head sprouted from a colossal black tree that sprawled endlessly in every direction. Branches twisted into dragon necks, each one roaring and cackling.

From its roots oozed dark red liquid, and countless spectral, monstrous versions of Louis began to crawl forth.

“You’re…! A Grievance…!”

The realization hit her like a blow. After fighting and slaying the Gardener, she recognized that sickening sensation instantly—the slow corrosion of her Heart of Fantasy by a power she could barely resist.

But this wasn’t the Grievance’s Domain. So where was she?

“I am born of his agony and despair, of his doubt and envy, of his self-loathing and self-hatred, of his eternal longing for a future he will never grasp.”

“N-No…! Louis is…! He would never…”

“What makes you think he wouldn’t? He possesses every qualification to become a Grievance. All he needed was a little push—and you, too, could join him.”

“What?”

Mirai collapsed to the ground, overwhelmed by a paralyzing wave of fear so intense her entire body locked up.

“Your Soul, your Power—it’s all so similar to me. Let us become Grievances together, Mirai.”

“Let us lay waste to this world that does nothing but torture him.”

“Don’t you want that?”

“Don’t you want to protect him?”

“Don’t you love him?”

“Ah…”

In that moment, something deep inside her heart stirred violently.

Her chest pounded furiously, as though something inside was trying to tear its way out.

“No, no, no!”

She clutched her chest with both hands, gritting her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut, shaking her head frantically.

The Dragon loomed over her with cold disdain.

“Or perhaps I was mistaken.”

“Maybe we should simply kill you and devour you instead.”

“I am certain that would be far more entertaining.”

Mirai glared back at them, fury blazing through her fear.

“Louis… would never say such things! Louis is…! He pretends to be a bad person, but he’s an incredibly kind man!” Tears burst from her eyes. “Louis…! You’re not him…! You’re a monster! A monster born from his heart because he watched his father die in front of him! Because of all the suffering he’s endured… but you are not him!”

“How can we not be?”

“We are him.”

“His madness.”

“His despair.”

“His hopelessness!”

“We are Louis. We are the dragon he idealized, the dragon he dreamed of becoming.”

“We, Louis, have finally attained our true dragon form—born from despair and agony!”

“And we shall lay waste to this world and make every single soul suffer the same pain and despair we endured!”

Grievances.

Twisted existences ruled by their own madness, formed almost entirely from corrupted Fantasium.

Broken souls with the terrifying ability to rewrite fragments of reality into their own ideal fantasies—monstrous entities born from the Dimensional Labyrinth.

And… sometimes, Spiralwalkers who had fallen into despair and madness, consumed by anxiety in their hearts, spirits, minds, and souls…

They twisted their very being into the monstrous thing Mirai now stared at.

The Louis she loved could never become such an aberrant creature.

Of that, she was utterly certain.

“Get out…”

“Hmm?!”

“Get out of my Fantasy Heart!”

In that instant, Mirai realized she was neither dreaming nor dead.

The Grievance—the Abyssal Dragon Tree of Ruin—had corroded her Fantasy Heart and invaded her mind, trying to assimilate her completely.

But the invasion was beginning to backfire.

RUMBLE!

“…?!”

The five heads snapped their eyes wide as demonic flames erupted everywhere, igniting the dark wood they were made of.

“We have the same!”

Yet they roared in defiance, channeling power into their jaws and unleashing destructive breath attacks of corrupted nirvana flames.

“Ah!”

Mirai leaped away from the blasts, dodging danger while her body constantly grew larger and faster.

“They were trying to intimidate me… Why are they so desperate to devour me for more power? Louis… at least some good part of him might still be in there…!”

“COME HERE AND BURN, MIRAI!”

The monstrous Grievance bellowed. Sharp dark-wood branches burst up all around her, blocking her path. Her body kept transforming, swelling into her full demonic form as she embraced her true self without letting Madness swallow her whole.

She summoned a long spear of pure flames and hurled it at the dragon. It pierced one head clean through, then detonated the skull in a violent explosion.

BOOOM!

“Guuaaaggghh?!”

“Raaaaarrrr!”

“Damn it! You bitch!”

“Die!”

The four remaining heads roared in fury. The colossal tree growing inside Mirai’s Fantasy Heart sprouted immense legs and began chasing her through the empty void.

“In the previous regression, my Fantasy Heart awakened and I had an Incarnation… so why can’t I summon it now? Unlike Louis, I can’t hold onto my power…!”

But she only needed the right trigger, and Mirai knew it well. The true reason her Fantasy Heart had awakened before was…

Because she needed strength to save Louis.

“Awaken, Devil!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep