Novel Full Chapter 1785: What Justice Demands
Chapter 1785: What Justice Demands
Villain Ch 1785. What Justice Demands
The earth was quiet beneath their boots as they continued forward—no sign of the Whispering Tree anymore, just dying grass and the echo of something that clung too tight to the ribs.
But not forever.
Because of course—this was a game.
And the monsters didn’t wait for emotional healing.
A clawed beast lunged from the thicket—a twisted thing, half-armored, half-shadow, with tusks like broken swords and eyes full of static.
Allen didn’t hesitate. His blade snapped up in a precise, arcing cut. One clean strike, and it folded in half like rotten paper.
Jane followed through immediately, her hand glowing faintly, only to frown as it sparked weirdly in her grip.
“Ugh. Mana drag again. This field’s messing with the flow.” She stomped down on a goblin-like crawler trying to claw her ankles.
“Anyway, back to the important questions—do you think all this ties to the Devil Emperor’s origin? I mean… that memory back at the tree? The slaughter? What if it’s not just a warden?”
Bella hurled a fireball that fizzled halfway but still managed to slap a bat-thing out of the air. “Could be. I mean, it felt like a crown. Like a king who lost his mind—or maybe someone who never had it in the first place.”
Allen sliced another beast through the chest with a single movement. “Hey, let’s not make every massacre my fault. I’d like to salvage some of my corrupted reputation.”
Alice smirked, calmly stabbing a void spear through a floating wisp. “You’re meant to be the villain, Allen. We all are,” she reminded him.
Vivian leaned on her whip, stretching her arms above her head lazily. “Yeah, and it’s kind of hot. You? A warlord with a past so tragic it can’t even be explained with one flashback? Delicious,” she huffed.
Shea grinned, blades catching blood-light. “It’s our job, isn’t it? Make the world burn pretty.”
Zoe casually tore a hound in half with one swipe of her tentacles. “I like it. It’s more honest than pretending we’re the heroes.”
Allen opened his mouth—probably to drop a line like ’You guys are all insane and I love you for it’—but then he stopped.
His head tilted. Shoulders tightened just slightly.
Because in the distance—beyond a ridge of blackened trees—something flickered. Not just movement. Not just an event.
A fight.
No—bigger. A battle.
The sky above it shimmered unnaturally, and the air tasted different—more metallic, like blood on a coin.
He narrowed his eyes. “That’s… weird.”
Jane jogged up beside him. “What is it?”
“Look.” He pointed.
They followed his gaze.
Across the ridge, firelight flickered. Smoke coiled in spirals. Clashing steel echoed faintly on the wind. But this was a secluded map, accessible only via side-quest scrolls—each one pulling the player team into its own pocket dimension.
Which meant—no other players.
So who the hell was fighting?
Allen began to move. Slowly at first, then quicker. The girls followed, all of them growing more alert as they climbed the slope.
When they crested it—
They stopped. All at once.
Below them stretched a battlefield. Or something like it.
Rows of soldiers, half-formed. They shimmered—glitching between real and transparent, like ghosts caught in a loop, not like being hacked. Their faces were frozen in expressions of rage, pain, defiance. Some reached for swords that never finished materializing. Others looked as though they’d already fallen but hadn’t hit the ground yet.
It was a scene frozen in mid-motion.
Time locked. Meaning trapped.
The banners were unreadable, colors bleeding into one another. The flames weren’t even moving. They hovered mid-air, like the memory of fire, not the thing itself.
The air felt heavy. Stifled. Like it hadn’t been breathed in years.
And then—
Jane tried to cast a spell. Just a spark. A test.
Nothing.
Her fingers moved. The mana should’ve flared.
But it didn’t.
She tried again. And again.
“Guys…” she said slowly. “Magic’s down.”
Alice scowled and focused, raising her hand to summon shadow threads—nothing but a flicker of failure.
Zoe’s water whip sputtered and hissed back into mist.
Vivian narrowed her eyes. “This place has rules. We’re in something old. Something scripted.”
Allen stepped forward slowly.
And that’s when he heard it.
His voice.
“Execute them. One blade per neck.”
The sentence hit like a punch to the gut. Sharp. Unforgiving.
He froze.
The girls didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe.
Because they heard it too.
“Do not leave the children alive,” the voice added, cold and commanding. “A Seer lies hidden among them. Burn it down. All of it.”
Allen’s breath caught.
He knew that tone. That steadiness. That clinical cruelty.
It wasn’t him—but it was his voice.
Or at least someone who wore it.
Jane stepped closer, quietly. “Allen…”
He didn’t respond.
His eyes were on the battlefield.
And the memory echoed again. Different line. Same tone.
“This is not cruelty. This is order. And we are its enforcers.”
The soldiers below didn’t move. Still trapped in their mid-motion loop. Still waiting for a command that had already been given a hundred times over.
The system flared suddenly in his peripheral.
[New Event Triggered: The Broken Oath]
“Step into the forgotten war and learn what justice demands.”
Allen inhaled slowly.
His throat was dry. His pulse wasn’t panicked—but it wasn’t calm either. He felt heat coiling at the base of his spine. Familiar. Dangerous.
“Classic game hint,” he muttered. “When the monsters—or the system—start flaring, it means you’re on the right path.”
Vivian tilted her head, voice lower now. “So are we supposed to stop this… or remember it?”
Larissa stepped beside him, frowning. “This isn’t a memory. It’s a trial.”
Zoe stared down into the field of ghosts. “I’m starting to think this isn’t even about Caelreth anymore. I mean… why do they talk directly to Allen?”
Shea’s voice was barely above a whisper. “What if this whole quest was never about him?”
Allen closed his eyes for a second.
And then he stepped forward.