[The Frozen Prison] [The Room of Truth -- Great Tome of Nazarick ]
Consciousness returned like a violent shock. Gasping for air, tasting of rot and death, Antilene Heran Fouche felt like a drowning victim breaking through the dark waters of a deep slumber.
The cloying stench assaulted her senses before she even opened her eyes. A vile odor of rusted iron, medicinal herbs, and old blood coated the back of her throat. This foul mixture belonged to a place explicitly designed to dismantle hope piece by piece.
Opening her eyes, the Extra Seat of the Slane Theocracy found her vision swimming in dim light. Shadows danced erratically against the damp stone walls. Magical torches burned with a pale blue corpse fire, providing the only illumination in the suffocating room. Attempting to raise a hand to wipe the crust from her eyelashes, she found her limbs entirely unresponsive. A heavy groan of thick metal answered her intent instead.
Heavy obsidian chains held her suspended in the freezing air. These dark restraints shackled her wrists and ankles tightly to the ceiling and floor. Faint pulses of muddy light throbbed along the thick metal links, pumping a heavy sensation through her veins. The high-tier suppression magic sluggishly suffocated her martial arts and drained her vast stamina. Even her innate biological regeneration felt distant and muted.
Her Divine class equipment was missing. A single, ragged tunic covered her pale skin. The thin fabric offered zero protection against the biting, unnatural chill radiating from the floorboards.
Where am I?
The biting cold triggered a flood of fractured memories. The Elven Capital burned in her thoughts. She recalled the Dark Elf child holding a wooden staff. That young girl had stared at her with mismatched eyes entirely devoid of fear before his magic descended with the crushing weight of a collapsing mountain.
I lost.
That crushing realization formed a bitter pill. Antilene gagged on her own saliva, trying to swallow the truth of her undeniable submission. She had reigned as Overlord of the New World. The ultimate Guardian of Humanity. Yet, a little girl had handled the apex predator like a misbehaving child.
"Ara ara? It seems our little guest has finally decided to return to the land of the living."
The wet falsetto grated against her exposed nerves. Antilene forced her heavy head upward to locate the source of the vile sound.
A nightmare given flesh stood before the suspended prisoner. The creature manifested as a bloated mass of grayish skin, its vaguely humanoid shape distorting the basic boundaries of anatomical sanity. Slimy tentacles writhed with independent life where standard fingers should reside. The face presented a grotesque canvas of stitched flesh featuring sunken, beady eyes that gleamed with a sadistic yellow light. The monster wore a thick leather apron stained with viscous dark fluids.
Antilene prayed to the Six Great Gods that those stains only belonged to alchemical reagents.
This thing, it resembled a torturer.
For the first time in centuries, the familiar fires of battle lust failed to ignite within her chest. The visceral urge to test her scythe against this creature's neck vanished entirely. A hollow, freezing void replaced her legendary arrogance as the bloated abomination waddled closer.
I am in their stronghold. The Sorcerer King's domain.
The name of that undead sovereign echoed in her mind, sending a violent tremor deep into her marrow. A being capable of commanding subordinates of that Dark Elf's caliber possessed terrifying geopolitical implications.
While the monster sorted through a rusted tray of iron instruments, Antilene pieced together the true shape of the board. The Sorcerer King had orchestrated the destruction of the Re-Estize Kingdom. He had manipulated the Baharuth Empire into vassalage. He maneuvered the Theocracy into ending their grinding war with the Elves, choosing to strike a fatal blow at the exact moment of humanity's greatest exposure.
It was a flawless masterstroke. A divine intellect had woven this trap over years, perhaps millennia. The strategy felt less like a tactical military plan and more like the crushing turn of fate's gears.
Averting her gaze from the torturer, she stared at the bloodstained flagstones. A suffocating clarity washed over her. The impenetrable armor of arrogance she had worn since birth dissolved into ashes.
Regret welled up in her chest. The emotion burned hot and heavy.
For decades, she had lived a life of selfish indulgence. She spent her days solving a Rubik's Cube and mocking the deep anxiety of the Cardinals. Wallowing in perpetual boredom, she claimed she awaited a man strong enough to defeat her. She insisted her only desire was to bear the child of a superior being.
What a foolish lie.
The mandate served as a convenient political aegis. Setting the strict requirement for marriage ensured no human in the Theocracy could ever touch her. It operated as a calculated front, preventing the Cardinals from utilizing her as a broodmare. Viewing her sacred duty only as a heavy shackle to resent.
Playing childish games in a sandbox, she remained blind to the true Supreme Being. He was moving mortal nations like fragile glass pawns on a continental chessboard.
Be careful what you wish for, a cruel voice whispered in the recesses of her fractured mind.
Because she had played her petty games, the ultimate shield of the Slane Theocracy was shattered forever. The tired faces of the Cardinals flashed behind her eyelids. Those old men nagged her incessantly, looking at her with a complicated mixture of fear, reverence, and profound desperation. She had despised their weakness. Now, hanging in the silence of this torture chamber, she finally understood the crushing burden they carried. They were mortal men holding back the endless tide of human extinction with trembling hands.
They had relied entirely on her strength. Millions of citizens slept soundly at night because they believed in the invincible might of their nation. The farmers, the merchants, and the children playing in the sunlit streets of the Capital trusted the theocracy and its supremacy.
I failed them. I failed them all.
Unbidden tears pricked the corners of her eyes. The saltwater stung against the frigid air as the grim arithmetic settled in her mind. She had led the starving wolf directly to the flock.
The Dark Elf had utilized her ultimate trump card during their battle. He watched her cast [The Goal of All Life is Death]. The Sorcerer King possessed an unmatched magical intellect. An undead sovereign like him would undoubtedly trace that arcane thread back to its divine source. He would deduce the hidden existence of Surshana's legacy. He would learn of the God-kins.
"The Theocracy," she rasped. Her voice sounded dry and cracked, resembling parchment left baking in the desert sun. "They do not stand a chance."
It was not a question. It served as a terminal verdict.
If beings possessing that Dark Elf's horrific power operated only as underlings, the Sorcerer King reigned as a true god. But he was no benevolent deity like the Six. No, he was a living calamity, a nightmare. The world possessed no defense, no negotiation table, and no viable escape from his wrath.
The theocracy's fanatical scriptures, their hoarded magical artifacts, and their desperate faith would all burn to ashes. The fragile human bloodline she was sworn to protect would be erased from the continental map.
It was all her fault.
Mother. Is this the hell you lived in? No, this is worse. I wasted my entire life hating that man. I clung to the hatred you forced upon me. Therefore, remaining blind to the true monsters lurking in the darkness. Now, the price of my vanity will be paid in the blood of millions.
Closing her eyes, she allowed a single tear to cut a clean track through the grime on her cheek.
"Oh? Are we crying already?"
The bloated torturer, Neuronist Painkill, noticed the moisture and giggled. The wet sound mimicked slimy slimes sliding over wet stone.
"We haven't even started the fun part yet! Ainz-sama has given me specific instructions to extract everything you know. Every little thing."
Neuronist waddled closer. The corpulent mass moved with an unsettling, fluid grace, defying her immense bulk. Selecting a long, thin spike from the rusted tray, the monster admired the tool. The ribbed needle was explicitly designed for maximum nerve agony. The dark metal glinted maliciously in the blue torchlight.
"You possess memories of a certain item, do you not? A World Class Item. [Downfall of Castle and Country]?"
Antilene's heart stopped beating. The blood froze in her veins.
They knew.
"Do not worry," Neuronist cooed. The creature brought the jagged needle close to Antilene's dilated pupil. The sharp tip hovered a hairsbreadth from her cornea. "We have an eternity to discuss it. Oh, a long time, just the two of us, alone together. Ahem! Since you are strong, you are quite durable, are you not? You have plenty of health points to spare. You will not break easily, right? That fills me with immense joy."
Antilene did not scream. No, she kept her mouth shut tight. Staring into the oppressive darkness of the stone ceiling, her chest swelled with a crushing sorrow for the world she had doomed. The paralyzing fear of imminent physical pain vanished entirely.
Forgive me. Captain. Cardinals. Everyone. The monster is coming, and I am the one who opened the door.