Mama, I'm scared," I whimpered, the words a poison-tipped dart aimed at her heart. "I don't want to die. I wanna get out of here."
Her thin arms, possessing a strength born only of desperation, wrapped around me. I could feel the unnatural heat of her fever through her thin tunic, the tremors that wracked her frail body. She was a flickering candle flame, and the darkness of this dungeon was a hurricane.
"I know, my love. I know," she whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears. "I am so sorry, Kalyth. A mother is supposed to protect her child. She is supposed to be a shield. But I… I have failed you. I let this house of vipers break me."
'No, you didn't,' my inner voice, cold and sharp as obsidian, countered. 'You endured. You survived. They didn't break you. They just put you to sleep. And I'm going to be the world's most obnoxious alarm clock.'
I kept up the act, burrowing deeper into her embrace. "Can't we just… run away? Go somewhere far from here, just you and me? You can tell me stories every night. About the Star Knight and the Dragon Princess."
A wet, choked sob escaped her. "Oh, my sweet, foolish girl. There is nowhere to run. These walls… this island… it all belongs to him. There is no escape."
'That,' I thought with a grim sense of satisfaction, 'is where you are wrong.'
My mind was a whirlwind, processing the three-phase plan Akira had laid out. Phase 1: Stabilization. It hinged on me convincing my mother to perform a painful, pseudo-magical healing technique she didn't know she was capable of. It was delicate. Risky. The 68% success probability felt like a razor's edge. If her will faltered, if the pain was too much…
Just as I was about to begin reciting Akira's instructions, my system's voice cut through my thoughts with an uncharacteristic, almost electric urgency.
[HALT, MASTER. CEASE CURRENT PROTOCOL. A NEW VARIABLE HAS BEEN INTRODUCED.]
I flinched internally. 'New variable? What new variable? Did the guards come back?'
[NEGATIVE. THE NEW VARIABLE IS… ME. I HAVE FINISHED A DEEP-LEVEL SIMULATION OF THE "MATERNAL EMPOWERMENT PROTOCOL." THE 68.4% PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS IS ACCURATE, BUT UNACCEPTABLE. THE RISK OF SUBJECT WILLPOWER FAILURE DURING PHASE 1, OR A FAILED AWAKENING DURING PHASE 2, IS TOO HIGH. A SUB-OPTIMAL AWAKENING COULD RESULT IN PERMANENT PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE OR EVEN DEATH. WE CANNOT AFFORD A MERE 68% CHANCE. WE REQUIRE A STRATEGY WITH A NEAR-CERTAIN OUTCOME.]
A knot of anxiety tightened in my gut. I hadn't considered the possibility of a botched Awakening. 'So what now? Is it impossible? Is the quest a failure?'
There was a pause, a moment where I could almost feel Akira's core processors running at unimaginable speeds, calculating, creating, innovating. Then, the response came, and it was so audacious, so utterly insane, that I almost broke character and laughed out loud.
[A NEW STRATEGY HAS BEEN FORMULATED. DESIGNATION: PROJECT APOTHEOSIS. IT IS RADICAL, UNCONVENTIONAL, AND DRAWS HEAVILY FROM THE NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTS WITHIN YOUR STORED MEDIA IN [AKIRA'S LIBRARY]. MASTER, THIS IS THE MOST RECOMMENDED PATH FORWARD.]
My otaku soul vibrated with anticipation. A plan based on anime tropes? This was going to be good. 'Lay it on me, Akira. What's Project Apotheosis?'
[THE CURRENT CELL IS AN ISOLATED POCKET OF SPACE. YOUR FATHER, IN HIS ARROGANCE, HAS PROVIDED US WITH A PERFECT, UNMONITORED LABORATORY. I PROPOSE WE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STABILIZE AND AWAKEN YOUR MOTHER IN THIS REALITY. INSTEAD, I WILL INTEGRATE THE [CHAMBER OF ASCENDANCE] DIRECTLY INTO THIS PHYSICAL LOCATION.]
I choked back a gasp. 'You can DO that? You can superimpose a pocket dimension over real space?'
[IT WILL EXPEND A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF MY RESERVE ENERGY, BUT IT IS FEASIBLE. I CAN OVERLAY THE CHAMBER'S LAWS ONTO THIS CELL FOR THE DURATION OF ONE EXTERIOR DAY. THE TEMPORAL DILATION WILL REMAIN: ONE YEAR INSIDE THE CHAMBER WILL EQUAL THE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS YOU HAVE UNTIL DAWN.]
'One year,' I breathed internally. A whole year. Not just for stabilization. For training. For forging.
[THE PRIMARY CHANGE WILL BE GRAVITY. I RECOMMEND AN IMMEDIATE INCREASE TO FIFTEEN TIMES STANDARD GRAVITY.]
'Fifteen?! I nearly died in 1.5g! She's half-dead already! That'll crush her into paste!'
[CORRECT. UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, IT WOULD BE INSTANTLY FATAL. BUT THIS IS THE KEY TO PHASE 2: THE CATALYST. HER AWAKENING MUST BE FORCED NOT BY PSYCHOLOGICAL TRICKERY, BUT BY AN EXISTENTIAL, BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE. WHEN THE 15G FIELD ACTIVATES, HER UNPROTECTED BODY WILL BEGIN TO FAIL ON A CELLULAR LEVEL. HER LATENT BLOODLINE AND SEALED BLESSINGS WILL BE FORCED TO AWAKEN IN A CATASTROPHIC SURVIVAL RESPONSE. IT IS A GAMBIT OF ABSOLUTE DESPERATION. EITHER SHE AWAKENS INSTANTLY, OR SHE IS EXTINGUISHED.]
It was monstrous. It was perfect. A baptism by crushing force.
[ONCE SHE AWAKENS, SHE WILL BE A CONFUSED, TERRIFIED BEING OF IMMENSE, UNTAPPED POWER. SHE WILL NOT RESPOND TO SIMPLE TUTORIALS. SHE REQUIRES A GOAL. A NARRATIVE. A QUEST.]
'The Demon King scenario,' I realized, my heart hammering in my chest with excitement. 'You're really going to do it.'
[AFFIRMATIVE. I WILL MANIFEST A HIGH-FIDELITY, TEMPORARY CONSTRUCT. A "DEMON KING." THIS CONSTRUCT WILL "ABDUCT" YOU, SEEMINGLY TEARING YOU AWAY FROM HER. IT WILL THEN IMPRISON YOU IN A VIRTUAL CASTLE AT THE APEX OF THE CHAMBER. YOUR MOTHER'S OBJECTIVE WILL BE CLEAR AND PRIMAL: TO ASCEND THE DUNGEON, DEFEAT THE MONSTERS WITHIN, AND RESCUE HER CHILD.]
It was genius. Pure, unadulterated, glorious isekai logic applied to reality. I wouldn't have to act a little. I'd get to act a lot. I would be the princess in the tower, the damsel in distress, the ultimate motivator. My mother wouldn't be training because a voice in her daughter's head told her to; she'd be fighting her way through hell itself because she thought her baby's life was on the line.
[THIS METHOD REPLACES UNCERTAIN PSYCHOLOGICAL MANIPULATION WITH A DIRECT, GOAL-ORIENTED TRAINING REGIMEN. SHE WILL LEARN TO USE HER POWERS NOT BECAUSE SHE IS TOLD TO, BUT BECAUSE SHE MUST IN ORDER TO PROGRESS. SHE WILL FIGHT BECAUSE SHE IS A MOTHER. HER EVERY VICTORY WILL STRENGTHEN HER. EVERY MONSTER DEFEATED WILL BE A STEP CLOSER TO YOU. HER SURVIVAL INSTINCT AND HER MATERNAL INSTINCT WILL BECOME ONE AND THE SAME. IT IS A PERFECT MOTIVATIONAL LOOP.]
'And me? What do I do? Just hang out in a fake castle for a year?'
[YOU WILL BE HELD IN A SAFE, ZERO-GRAVITY STASIS FIELD WITHIN THE VIRTUAL CONSTRUCT, MASTER. YOU CAN OBSERVE HER PROGRESS, REST, AND EVEN ACCESS THE LIBRARY. EXTERNALLY, YOU WILL APPEAR TO BE AN UNCONSCIOUS, IMPRISONED VICTIM. THIS SCENARIO POSITIONS YOU AS THE OBJECTIVE, REMOVING ALL SUSPICION FROM YOU. ALL OF THIS—THE DEMON KING, THE MONSTERS, THE SYSTEM INTERFACE SHE WILL RECEIVE—IT WILL ALL APPEAR TO BE A DIVINE TRIAL BESTOWED UPON HER. MY DIRECT INVOLVEMENT WILL BE COMPLETELY CONCEALED.]
My mind blazed with the sheer beauty of it. My otaku blood, dormant for so long as Fujiwara Miku, was now a roaring bonfire in Kalyth's veins. This wasn't just a plan. This was a god-tier story in the making!
'Do it! Akira, don't even ask! Begin Project Apotheosis! LET'S FUCKING GOOO!'
I took a deep breath, the actress reclaiming the stage for the final, critical performance. I pushed a fraction of my own chilling internal resolve into my trembling voice. It was time to set the stage.
"Mama," I whispered, my voice growing fainter. I let my body go limp in her arms. "Mama, it's so cold…"
Her body jolted, her panic cutting through her despair. "Kalyth? Kalyth, stay with me! Open your eyes!"
"So sleepy…" I murmured, my eyelids fluttering. I was a terrible actress in my past life, but fueled by adrenaline and the sheer awesomeness of this plan, I was delivering an award-winning performance. "I can't… feel my fingers anymore… Mama…"
"No! NO!" Her voice was a raw, panicked cry in the darkness. She hugged me tighter, as if her love alone could ward off the encroaching cold of death. "Don't leave me! Please, Kalyth, don't leave me! I can't… not you too!"
This was it. She was at the bottom of the pit, clinging to the last flickering light in her life. Now was the time for the miracle. The hook.
As per Akira's direction, I focused my will, not on my own power, but on projecting a thought into the space between us. Akira would do the rest.
A soft, ethereal chime, like a single, impossibly clear crystal bell, echoed in the silent dungeon cell. It wasn't a sound that came from the hallway; it seemed to resonate from the very air around us, from within our own minds.
My mother froze, her weeping silenced by sheer shock.
Then came the voice. It wasn't Akira's synthesized tone, nor was it my own. It was a chorus of voices, male and female, ancient and powerful, speaking as one. It was the voice of a god. A System. A Miracle.
{DAUGHTER OF VARKOVA…}
Anastarka gasped, her entire body rigid.
{YOUR CHILD'S SOUL FADES… HER THREAD OF FATE IS ABOUT TO BE CUT…}
"Who… who are you?" my mother whispered, her voice filled with terror and a desperate, burgeoning hope. "What is this?"
{WE ARE THE ECHO OF YOUR BLOOD. THE WILL OF YOUR DESTINY. A PATH IS OFFERED TO YOU. A CHANCE TO GAIN THE POWER TO SHATTER THESE CHAINS AND SAVE YOUR CHILD.}
"Power?" she breathed. "I… I have no power."
{IT SLEEPS WITHIN YOU. CAGED. BROKEN. BUT NOT GONE. WE CAN UNLEASH IT. WE CAN FORGE YOU ANEW IN A CRUCIBLE OF PAIN AND BATTLE.}
"What… what must I do?" she asked, her voice trembling but desperate. "I'll do anything! Please, just save my daughter!"
The ethereal voice paused, its tone growing heavy, grave.
{THE PRICE IS A YEAR OF YOUR LIFE. A YEAR SPENT IN A REALM OF TORMENT, WHERE EVERY BREATH IS A STRUGGLE AND EVERY MOMENT IS A BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL. A YEAR TO MASTER THE POWER OF YOUR ANCESTORS. IN THIS WORLD, ONLY ONE DAY WILL PASS. DO YOU ACCEPT THIS TRIAL? DO YOU WILLINGLY SACRIFICE A YEAR OF YOUR SOUL TO EARN BACK YOUR DAUGHTER'S LIFE?}
There was no hesitation.
There was no deliberation.
There was only the primal, ferocious roar of a mother's love.
"YES!" Anastarka screamed into the darkness, her voice raw with conviction. "Yes, I accept! Take my years! Take my soul! Take everything! JUST SAVE MY DAUGHTER!"
The moment the word 'YES' left her lips, the world ended.
'Here we go,' was my last coherent thought before chaos erupted.
First came the pressure. It wasn't a weight. It was an absolute, fundamental law of the universe changing around us. The 15g gravity field slammed into existence. My body, which had felt feather-light moments before, was instantly transformed into a sack of leaden meat. The air was crushed out of my lungs in a violent gasp. I felt my own small bones creak under the sudden, immense strain.
My mother cried out, not a scream of pain, but a grunt of pure, compressive shock as her already weak body was flattened against the stone floor. She was a frail bird caught under a hydraulic press.
Then came the light.
The oppressive darkness of the cell was banished. The very air began to shimmer and warp, glowing with a brilliant, purple-black energy. Runes and geometric patterns, more complex than any magic circle I could imagine, blazed into existence on the stone walls, the floor, the ceiling. The cell was no longer a prison. It was the heart of a ritual chamber.
A swirling vortex of dark energy coalesced in the center of the room. It was a wound in reality, a tear in the fabric of the Chamber's newly-formed space.
From within this vortex, a figure began to emerge.
It was colossal, easily nine feet tall. Its body was carved from obsidian shadow and burning embers. Great, curving horns swept back from its brow, and its eyes were twin pits of malevolent, crimson light. It wore no armor, its chest a canvas of shifting, fiery runes. This was Akira's creation. The Demon King. Its presence was overwhelming, a tidal wave of manufactured malice and power.
My mother, pinned to the floor by the impossible gravity, could only stare, her eyes wide with terror. This was so far beyond a Duke or his guards. This was a being from a nightmare.
The Demon King's gaze swept the room, dismissing the trembling form of my mother as if she were nothing. Its crimson eyes locked onto me.
"A KEY," its voice boomed, a sound that was part grinding stone, part roaring fire. It resonated not in the ears, but in the bones. "THE CHILD OF THE BROKEN BLOODLINE. A FITTING PRIZE FOR MY COLLECTION."
It took a single, ground-shaking step forward. Anastarka, with a surge of strength I couldn't believe she possessed, tried to push herself up, to place her body between the monster and me. Her arms trembled under the 15g load, muscles tearing, bones groaning, but her eyes blazed with defiant fire. It was the first spark of the goddess within.
"Stay away… from my daughter," she snarled, a low, guttural sound.
The Demon King chuckled, a low, rumbling sound like an avalanche. "YOUR DEFIANCE IS AS MEANINGLESS AS YOUR STRENGTH, MORTAL."
It raised a great, clawed hand. Tendrils of shadow erupted from it, slithering across the floor towards me. I played my final card. I screamed.
It was a genuine, terrified scream this time, a full-bodied shriek of a seven-year-old about to be consumed by a monster. The part of me that was still Kalyth, the child, took over. "MAMA! MAMA, HELP ME!"
The shadows touched me. They did not feel like anything, of course—they were just a special effect. But I went limp, my eyes rolling back in my head as if my consciousness had been snuffed out. The shadows coiled around my small body, lifting me into the air like a captured doll.
"KALYTH!"
My mother's roar was no longer human. It was the sound of a she-dragon whose nest had been raided. It was the sound of a legend being born in blood and terror. It was the sound of her Awakening, triggered by the sight of her world being stolen from her.
I allowed my head to loll to the side, my body held aloft by the shadow construct. The Demon King laughed again, a sound of pure victory, as it began to retract back into the swirling vortex, pulling me with it.
The last thing I saw before the darkness of the portal consumed me was my mother's face. Her eyes were no longer just golden. They were blazing with a furious, internal white light. Her black hair began to stir as if in a phantom wind, and arcs of raw, untamed blue lightning crackled across her skin. The goddess was waking up.
And as I vanished from her sight, her POV became the only reality.
(Anastarka's POV)
The world was pain. A great, crushing hand squeezed the very air from her lungs, threatened to turn her bones to powder. The monster. The laugh. The scream.
Kalyth.
Her daughter was gone. Stolen by the thing of shadow and fire, pulled into a swirling abyss of darkness.
"KALYTH!" she screamed again, her throat raw. She pushed against the unseeable force, the crushing weight of the world itself. A single thought burned through the agony, through the despair: Get. Her. Back.
Something snapped inside her. Not a bone. Not a muscle. Something deeper. A dam, built over a lifetime of fear and abuse, shattered into a million pieces. Power, hot and wild and terrifying, flooded every cell of her being. The phantom itch in her blood became a raging river of lightning. The cold ache in her soul became a glacier of absolute resolve. Her vision, once hazy with fever, was now preternaturally sharp.
The vortex that had stolen her daughter vanished. The Demon King was gone. Kalyth was gone. She was alone in the transformed cell, the burning runes on the walls the only testament to the nightmare that had just occurred.
And then, a new light appeared before her. It wasn't the malevolent purple-black of the monster. It was a serene, blindingly pure white light. It coalesced into a rectangular window, floating in the air before her eyes. The text within it was written in a script of golden light, elegant and ancient.
[TRIAL INITIATED]
[WELCOME, CHALLENGER. THE LAST DAUGHTER OF VARKOVA.]
Another window opened beside it, a stark, urgent red.
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! URGENT DIVINE QUEST !
Title: The Dragon's Stolen Treasure
Description:`` The Demon King, Jath'lyn the Soul-Collector, has abducted your only child, Kalyth. He has imprisoned her at the peak of his fortress, the Spire of Despair, intending to use her latent potential as a key to unlock a forbidden gate. Your child's life force is now bound to his own dark magic.
Objective:
1. Ascend the Spire of Despair.
2. Slay the servants of Jath'lyn.
3. Defeat the Demon King.
4. Rescue your daughter, Kalyth.
FAILURE PENALTY:
Permanent loss of Kalyth von Varkova.
The eternal enslavement of her soul.
------------------------------------
TIME LIMIT:
365 Days, 00 Hours, 00 Minutes, 00 Seconds
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A year. A year to save her.
Anastarka stared at the words, her mind a maelstrom of grief, rage, and a terrifying, burgeoning power. She pushed against the crushing gravity, and this time, her arms did not just tremble. They held. Her bones did not just groan. They settled. The pain was still immense, a universe of agony, but beneath it, she could feel a strength she had never known, a power that answered her will.
The despair was gone. The weeping, broken Duchess was dead.
In her place, something new began to rise. A mother. A warrior. A storm.
Her golden eyes, now blazing with arcs of blue lightning, narrowed. She looked at the quest window, then at the empty space where her daughter had been. Her lips parted, and a single word fell into the silent, super-heavy air.
"Begin."