Transmigrated as the Villainess Princess - Chapter 246

Chapter 246: A New Direction (10)

Ahcehera stirred in her sleep, her breath shallow and uneven, a fine sheen of sweat clinging to her forehead. Her body remained still beneath the silken covers of her chamber, but her soul, her consciousness, was somewhere else entirely, pulled into a realm where darkness had no end and monsters had no name.

In the nightmare, she stood alone on a battlefield swallowed by black fog, her bare feet sinking into soil wet with blood. The skies above were torn asunder, streaked with veins of crimson lightning, and the air itself felt poisoned by something cruel. No stars shone. No moon was watched. There was only the void and the cacophony of whispers clawing at her ears.

The monsters came slowly at first, slithering shadows with too many eyes and twisted limbs. They crept from beneath the earth and spilled from the cracked sky like ink poured into water. They didn’t roar or scream. They laughed, an endless, cold laughter that echoed inside her skull like a memory she’d tried too long to bury.

She wanted to move, to summon her light, to call forth her blade, to teleport far from here, but her body betrayed her. Her hands were trembling. Her magic… gone. Her light… gone. Her assassin’s precision, her combat prowess, everything that once made her a force feared across galaxies, was nothing but dust in this realm.

“Help,” she tried to say, but the word came out as a breathless whisper, swallowed by the black.

She turned in place, her chest tightening with every heartbeat. One by one, the monsters emerged from the mist, each one bearing a face she recognized. The first was her mother, Queen Tereza, her eyes hollow, blood pouring from her mouth as she mouthed words Ahcehera could not understand.

The second was Liliana, her sweet daughter, but with wings of bone and blackened flame, crying as she dissolved into ash. The third was Riezekiel, standing in a pool of darkness with chains around his neck, his expression blank, staring right through her.

“No,” she gasped, taking a shaky step back.

From all sides, the monsters advanced, and each wore a mask of someone she had failed. Richmond. Her father. Her brothers. Eros. Her soldiers from the Western Campaign. All of them are blaming her with their silence.

She tried to run. Her legs moved, but the ground pulled her down like tar, rising up and wrapping around her ankles, dragging her backward. She fell to her knees, then her hands, clawing at the soil that seemed to breathe beneath her.

A shadow loomed behind her, immense and terrible, its presence so vast it blotted out even the nothingness. It had no form, only the suggestion of hunger and rage and chains.

“You were meant to burn,” it whispered into her ear.

The voice was not human. It wasn’t a demon. It was everything she had tried to forget.

“You were born to be a weapon, and now, look at you, useless. Forgotten. Powerless.”

Ahcehera screamed. Not because of pain, but because it felt true.

A wave of monsters surged toward her. Claws reached out. Jaws opened wide. She raised her hands, trying to shield herself, but nothing came. No barrier. No blade. No light. She had nothing. No one. Alone.

“Why do you fight?” the voice taunted. “No one is coming for you. Not this time.”

And in the distance, she saw something she didn’t want to see. The silhouette of herself, standing tall and cold, but… wrong. This version of her had red eyes, a crown of thorns, and wore a cloak made of bones. She watched the nightmare unfold with a cruel smirk.

This was the version of her that surrendered. The version that embraced the darkness.

“No!” Ahcehera cried. “That’s not me!”

But the doppelgänger laughed, lifting a hand to summon another wave of beasts. The monsters poured from every direction, their forms twisting, changing, growing more grotesque by the second. They surrounded her. Consumed her. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. All she could hear were voices whispering in a thousand languages.

“You’re broken.””You’re forgotten.””You are nothing without your power.”

She clawed at the darkness, her fingers bleeding. “Stop! Stop! Someone, please…”

But there was no one.

In her waking life, she was loved. She was respected. She had Eros beside her, Liliana calling her mother, students looking to her as a leader. But here, in this dream that felt more like a memory, there was no title that could protect her. No role she could hide behind. It was just her, the girl who had survived too many wars and lost too many people. And the darkness knew her.

“You cannot escape us, Ahcehera. You left the light. You let it die.”

Suddenly, a flash of red light broke through the fog. It was small at first, barely a flicker, but it grew stronger, pulsing like a heartbeat.

Ahcehera lifted her head.

A red sparrow flew through the shadows, unharmed, untouched. It circled above her once, then dove straight into the eye of the storm. The darkness screeched. The monsters recoiled. The shadow behind her screamed in rage.

The red sparrow exploded in a burst of crimson flame, and for a moment, just a moment, the darkness was pushed back. And then… she saw her.

Liliana.

Her daughter stood at the edge of the battlefield, wearing silver armor and a cloak that shimmered like moonlight. Her eyes burned with a fire not of this world, and in her hand was a sword, glowing not with light, but with memory.

“You are not alone, Mother,” Liliana’s voice called out. “Wake up. Come back.”

Ahcehera reached toward her, tears streaking down her cheeks.

The monsters surged again, furious at the intrusion. They lunged toward Liliana, but she raised her blade, and with one swing, they were cleaved in two. The earth trembled. The sky cracked. And the illusion began to shatter.

Ahcehera’s body rose from the tar, pulled upward by unseen wind. The chains holding her snapped, and the fog dissipated like smoke in the wind.

The voice screamed in protest.

“She is mine!”

But Liliana reached out her hand, her voice soft but unbreakable.

“Not anymore.”

Ahcehera grabbed her daughter’s hand, and the dream exploded in a cascade of light and ash.

She gasped awake.

Her body jolted upright in bed, chest heaving, lungs screaming for air. The room around her was quiet. The stars outside the window twinkled gently, undisturbed. Her sheets were soaked with sweat. Her hands trembled.

But the nightmare was gone.

She sat still for a long time, staring at her shaking palms. Her heart thundered in her chest. That… had felt real. Too real.

Then she noticed the red feather on her nightstand.

She picked it up slowly, lips parting in disbelief.

It was real.

She didn’t know how Liliana had reached her, but she had. And in that moment, Ahcehera remembered something she had long forgotten.

No matter how far she fell, or how deep the darkness grew…

Her daughter would never let her be alone.