Chapter 562: Queen Of Oblivion
The man didn’t hesitate. His words spilled out in a frantic torrent, as if he feared that any delay would result in Mika unleashing another horror upon him.
"My name is Garrick." He began, his voice trembling. "I was born in a small village called Thornhaven, in the southern reaches of our realm."
"I joined the army at nineteen—enlisted as a technician, because I had a knack for machinery and magical devices."
"I served in Battalion Number 21, 36th Regiment, under the rule of the White Lord."
He paused, swallowing hard.
"I earned six exemplary medals during my service. Two other honors as well, for distinguished duty on the battlefield."
Anya’s brow furrowed deeply as she listened, her initial assessment wavering.
She had been certain that this man was some common criminal, perhaps a murderer or thief sent here with a death sentence hanging over his head like a executioner’s ax.
But these credentials, this service record...it painted a different picture entirely.
A war hero? A decorated soldier?
’Perhaps I was wrong.’ She thought, studying the man’s trembling form. ’Perhaps he’s more martyr than monster.’
But then, as if sensing their slight softening, Garrick’s narrative took a sharp, ugly turn.
"But then..." He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. "Then everything changed."
"Three years ago, during the pacification campaigns in the border regions, I...we..."
He faltered, then pressed on with the air of a man confessing to a priest.
"I was disbanded from the army. Stripped of all ranks and honors. Put on trial before a military tribunal and found guilty of..."
"...of raiding local villages during off-duty hours. Of taking liberties with the female population there."
The temperature in the room dropped by several degrees.
All three sisters’ faces turned freezing cold, like the depths of winter. Their eyes were fixed on Garrick with utter contempt, their earlier curiosity replaced by absolute disgust.
Astrid’s voice was ice as she slowly asked. "How many such cases do you have over your shoulder?"
Garrick seemed to shrink in his chair. "I...I have around thirty-seven cases."
Charlotte’s voice followed, equally cold. "And the other two? Were they similar to you?"
"Worse, my lady!" Garrick nodded frantically, his chains rattling with the movement. "Much worse. Hendrick—he had near double my count. Maybe seventy, seventy-five cases. And Valdris..."
He shuddered.
"Valdi made us both look like choir boys. He liked them young, you see. The younger the—"
"Enough." Anya’s voice cut through his explanation.
Whatever pity the sisters had harbored for these men, whatever mercy might have tempered their judgment, evaporated like morning dew under a harsh sun.
In that moment, they didn’t see a frightened prisoner.
They saw a predator who had finally been caged.
What Mika had done to the other two now seemed less like murder and more like justice delayed.
Garrick, oblivious to their shifting regard continued his tale.
His only concern now was preserving his miserable life for another hour, another minute, another breath.
"We were given the death sentence, all three of us. Public execution by burning."
"We thought for certain our lives were over, that there was no future ahead of us."
He looked up at them with wide, pitiful eyes, as if expecting sympathy for the fate he had so richly earned.
But the women’s expressions remained stone.
"But then." His eyes lit up with an almost religious fervor. "An opportunity was bestowed upon us!
"An opportunity granted by Her Radiant Darkness!"
"The Sovereign of Ash and Shadow!"
"The Breaker of Worlds!"
"The Queen of Oblivion herself!"
Charlotte couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down her spine at the title.
Even spoken by this wretch, the name a sense of vast and terrible power that pressed against the edges of perception like a storm on the horizon.
Mika’s brow furrowed deeply. He prided himself on his extensive knowledge of the various realms and their power structures.
He had catalogued heroes and villains, kings and emperors, gods and demons.
But this Queen of Oblivion...the title stirred no recognition in his vast mental archives.
And yet, the way Garrick spoke of her, with that mixture of terror and reverence that marked true fanaticism, suggested she was no minor figure.
"The Queen of Oblivion?" Mika leaned forward, his interest piqued. "What sort of person commands such a title? Who is she?"
Garrick’s eyes rolled upward, his face taking on the beatific expression of a zealot contemplating their deity.
"What sort of person is she?" He laughed—a sound devoid of humor, full of awe. "She is the one who stands above all others, my lord! The iron fist that shapes the world! The darkness that devours light!"
"The ending that births new beginnings!"
"Spare us the poetry." Astrid interjected coldly. "Facts. We want facts."
Garrick nodded quickly, gathering himself. "Of course, of course. To understand our Queen, you must understand our history. Long, long ago—"
"How long?" Mika interrupted. "Decades? A century?"
"Twelve hundred years." Garrick replied. "For twelve centuries, our world was shrouded in eternal darkness."
"Not metaphorical darkness, mind you—literal, crushing darkness that blocked out sun and star alike."
"And in that darkness dwelt...things. Monsters beyond description or classification. Creatures that defied the laws of nature and sanity alike."
He leaned forward, warming to his tale despite his circumstances.
"My ancestors huddled in fortified villages, unable to venture beyond the walls without being torn apart."
"We lived like rats in holes while abominations ruled the surface."
"No trade between settlements. No exploration. No growth."
"Just survival, generation after generation, century after century."
Mika filed this information away, his mind already spinning theories.
Could these creatures have been creations of the Eternal Queen?
But no—the timeline didn’t match what he knew of her activities.
This predated even her ancient machinations.
"Then, one day, one glorious, impossible day everything changed!"
Garrick’s voice took on the cadence of a storyteller reciting an oft-told tale.
"The monsters that had terrorized us for a millennium suddenly burst into crimson flames!"
"All of them! Everywhere! At the same instant!"
He spread his hands wide, chains clanking.
"Can you imagine it? My people, cowering behind their walls as always, suddenly seeing the darkness light up with thousands—millions—of crimson stars."
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Like a symphony of destruction, every monster exploding into ash and memory."
"At first, each village thought they alone had been blessed. But when we finally dared to venture out, to send messages to other settlements...we discovered the truth."
"Every. Single. Monster. Gone! In one moment, our world had been cleansed!"
Charlotte found herself drawn into the narrative despite her disgust for the narrator.
"What caused it? What force could accomplish such a thing?"
Garrick shrugged.
"No one knows. Divine intervention? A spell gone right? The monsters reaching some critical mass and self-destructing?"
"Theories went around, but facts are scarce."
"What matters is that we were free. For the first time in twelve hundred years, we could walk under open sky."
His expression darkened.
"But our happiness didn’t last long. Once one threat was finished, another came."
"Just a short time later, our world was invaded by another realm, one that was overwhelmingly more powerful than us. Soldiers in full armor, with abilities that seemed like magic, came from the skies and started slaughtering our people."
He shook his head sadly.
"We were just a rural society. We hadn’t developed at all because of the constant threat of monsters. We were being slaughtered one by one, and there was nothing we could do."
"We thought our entire world was doomed to eternal despair."
"That is until..."
His eyes lit up again, his hands beginning to tremble with excitement.
"...the Queen of Oblivion stepped in."
All three sisters perked up, their attention fully captured.
Garrick continued, his voice filled with pure admiration and awe.
"No one knows her origin, some say she was a Valkyrie sent by the heavens themselves..."
The three sisters exchanged glances at this. Their own mothers had been called Valkyries during their war against the Eternal Queen.
The parallel was not lost on them.
"...others claim she was a devil formed from the accumulated despair of our world."
"And some iinsist she was just a farm girl from a border village who refused to kneel."
Garrick shook his head with a small smile.
"Whatever the truth, the matter is this: she came. And she started slaughtering the invaders in a maniacal manner."
"Picture it..."
His eyes gleamed with fanatic fervor.
"Armies of trained soldiers, wielding advanced magics and tactics, being torn apart by a single woman!"
"She could fly without wings, summon fire without fuel, command wind and storm with a gesture. But more than that—oh, so much more than that—she had the same power that had destroyed the monsters!"
"She could make her enemies simply...explode! A look, a gesture, a whispered word, and boom! Warriors became crimson mist."
His eyes gleamed with remembered awe.
"Compared to the rest of us, who were just useless and being slaughtered, she was doing the exact opposite."
"She was the one carrying massacres and murders."
"She was bringing the invading army to ruin."
"She went from settlement to settlement." Garrick continued, lost in the story now. "Not just killing invaders, but teaching our people to fight."
"She showed us how to harness the mana that flowed through our world, how to forge it into weapons and shields."
"She built an army from farmers and craftsmen, from the dregs that twelve centuries of oppression had left behind. And she led us!"
He leaned back, a look of awe transforming his wretched features.
"The histories say that in her first decade of warfare, she personally killed over two million enemy soldiers."
The number hung in the air like a physical presence.
The sisters, who had thought themselves familiar with warfare and its costs, found themselves stunned by the sheer scope of such slaughter.
"Did she win?" Mika asked, though he suspected the answer.
"Of course she won!" Garrick’s response was immediate, almost offended. "With her divine might and the army she had forged, she didn’t just repel the invasion—she pushed through their portals and invaded them!"
"We went from defending our villages to conquering their cities. The hunted became the hunters."
A look of surprise crossed his face, as if remembering something unexpected.
"But here’s what truly showed her greatness—she didn’t massacre their civilians."
"Oh, she was ruthless with their military, their leadership, anyone who held a weapon against us."
"But the common people? The farmers and merchants and children?"
"She protected them!"
"Established strict laws that any soldier who harmed a non-combatant would face her personal justice."
"It’s exactly why I have a death penalty waiting for me back home."
Charlotte found her opinion of this Queen of Oblivion rising despite herself.
A conqueror who showed mercy, who distinguished between combatants and innocents—it spoke of wisdom beyond mere might.
"After twenty-eight years of war, we had conquered our first rival realm." Garrick continued. "The people celebrated. We thought we could finally know peace, could finally build instead of just survive."
His expression turned bitter.
"But we were fools. Within months, three more realms opened portals to our world. Then five more. Then a dozen."
"It seemed the universe itself conspired against us, sending wave after wave of invaders as if we were some cosmic affront that needed correcting."
Astrid tried to imagine it—generation after generation of constant warfare, never knowing peace, always under threat.
It was a nightmare made manifest.
Garrick’s voice grew fierce again.
"But while the rest of us wallowed in despair, certain that there was nothing we could do, there was one person who never gave up."
"One person who just charged forward."
He said it with a look of pure admiration.
"The Queen of Oblivion..."
"She went forward and charged through the enemy’s ranks, blowing them up one by one without any hesitation!"
"And seeing her face the enemy without a hint of weakness, the army behind her rallied. They met the invading realms head-on!"
The three sisters couldn’t help but tense up, almost as if they were hearing a mighty fairy tale about a female general that inspired them.
"All you could hear when she was by your side was explosion after explosion."
Garrick continued, his voice building with passion.
"She beheaded the generals of other armies, captured enemy soldiers and made them surrender, swallowed one army after another almost as if she was a beast that endlessly veered for war."
His voice grew faster, more intense.
"She dominated realm after realm. Conquered worlds she had never seen before. Gained the trust of members of different races from different realms."
"And soon, after 600 years of endless battles, genocides, and massacres, she sat on top of a throne that ruled over a 136 realms."
He gritted his teeth in awe.
"She became the queen that everyone submitted to."
"The Queen of Oblivion."
"The one true queen who will always rule up above us all."
