Chapter 363 362. Voiced Answers.



"..... What is your purpose, Eshwar...." Hana muttered under her breath, while she gazed around the domain with a ashen, lifeless face.

"To kill all of you." Eshwar's answer was heard in a heartbeat.

At that, Seo Hana's eyes finally shot wide open. Why kill them? She wanted to ask but she couldn't as her vision blurred for a split second and by the time she blinked her eyes to clear the blur, she found herself glaring down at Eshwar.

She was now standing on the throne's armrests as she glared down at Eshwar, who was calmly gazing back at her with a soft smile on his face, her bright orange, blazing wings were already out of her shoulder blades, but were much longer and lighter than she remembered them to be.

Her 8-foot-wide wings were now at least 13 feet wide, and her back had long, blade-like phoenix feathers; she now had a feathered bird's tail, while her legs too had turned into those of a bird's, but with phoenix flames. Her fingers and toes had turned into blazing claws, and her hair turned blazing orange halfway through.

She now literally looked like a phoenix kin, no, a half-phoenix that had been influenced by the phoenix side strongly then that of the human's.

"..... Why...." She mumbled, did she wanted to ask that question? No, not really. She had a myriad of thoughts cruising through her mind right now, but she didn't dare to voice even one of them. All while, Eshwar was gazing up at her calmly, with a smile on his.

"As I said, you are the only entertainment left for me." Eshwar replied.

"..... But why?" Hana muttered again, she didn't even know what she was speaking at this point of time as she just muttered whatever felt right to her, in her mind.

"Hana, you want to know a particularly harsh truth?" Eshwar asked, though the way she called her sent chills down to her very core, she nodded.

"I created you. Not just you, but everybody on the Earth you know of." Eshwar casually stated.

Ignoring Seo Hana's astonished, despairing, and devastated figure, "I created you guys with a pencil on a paper, you guys are significant "characters" in my "novel," do you understand?" Eshwar stated, gazing at the trembling petite, pitiful figure in front of him.

"What does that make me? An author! And what job do I have? I create. Villains, heroes, side-characters, supporting characters, and an outline of the story which is filled with difficulties that a hero has to go through, walk, run, get stronger, stumble, fall, kicked around, yet stand back up stronger than before, these are the significant things a "hero" has to go through, don't you think? So you have to understand that I, as an author, have to make you, the hero, go through everything, meaning I just have to throw a sh*t tonne of hardships at you, of course, these hardships should at least have basic common sense, though common sense doesn't really work when writing stories with HEROES included, but it should at least have some of it, and then these hardships should follow a flow too, do you understand?" Eshwar explained his own hardships.

"Ah, among these sh*t tonne of hardships thrown at you, you "will" lose many important "characters," though it hurts me too, I should make the story progress, right? And when the story ends, it just, for whatever reason, doesn't feel right to have all the characters still alive and kicking. So, sacrifices must be made for your, the hero's, character development, so I'm currently just doing my job, wouldn't the readers be bored if the story suddenly changed to that of a slice of life instead of what they came here for? We can always have a slice of life in the side story, so no one will be disappointed." Eshwar ranted, and Seo Hana, who heard everything in a daze, snapped out of it when a tear rolled off her cheek.

".... So, you are going to kill everyone? You have been sticking around with them for so many months, don't you feel anything? Didn't you feel any significance of their lives? This is not how a novel should go, even if the author himself is in the novel! He too will get hurt while growing together with those "characters," as you mentioned, experience hardships while also experiencing the lives of those he himself created, and finally when a choice is placed in front of him, he chooses the world he created, protects the world he created when if he has to sacrifice something significant, I also have read many novels, none of those I have read had anything like what you are doing and speaking about!" Seo Hana yelled at him, ignoring many important facts Eshwar casually stated, as tears streamed out of her eyes, like a broken tap.

Facts that she absent-mindedly glossed over were; first, he was an author that created the world that they lived in, meaning everything that had ever happened to the world they lived in could be blamed on him. Second, he was the creator of the system. Third, he had experienced death. Fourth, there existed a world without mana, different from the one they were living in. Fifth, her life which was filled with thrones beneath each step she took was because he wanted it to be so, because she too was a "character" born from his imagination, and a few more facts that could be derived if she pondered a bit.

"Wow, Hana! You should become an author yourself, what a story you created in an instant. Sorry, you are expecting too much from me while forgetting the most important part, me. Hana~ I'm a selfish person, with you guys gone, the world I created will be safe, I can just create a new cycle of life, where souls go through constant rebirths, after forgetting their previous life's memories, with no loopholes like those from the novels you have read." Eshwar stated, exclaiming.

"Hmmmm, Ah! You can just think of it like this, 'It just a story written by a newbie author, he just killed off the characters with no one except for the main character remaining in the end,' since that's quite true because I have only written three, no, four actually, and all these four are just another perspective of the surviving characters, who know of the future, and have changed it after being transmitted or regressed or rebirthed." Eshwar shrugged while sitting on the throne. However, Hana didn't react, because she understood her significance which was quite insignificant, this realisation calmed her mind dangerously as the box of reality that she had built in her mind shattered entirely, showing the true dangerous reality.

In her eyes, the Eshwar in front of her had changed, he was now merely a faceless figure that had circuit like lines and strips covering the entirety of a crystallized light blue coloured being without any facial features defining him, and the most shocking part of it was the fact that the current being in front of her was grandiosely humongous.

He was just a simple humanoid, crystal-like light blue figure, who was filled with pitch-black light-devouring circuit like patterns all over him.

She was just an ant gazing at such a being from a side, while his eyeless gaze was gazing down at something.

Suddenly,

"!!!!" Seo Hana shuddered when she noticed the being turn to gaze at her, but by the next instance, she snapped out of whatever she was gazing at, huffing and gasping for breath.

She looked around and found herself laid flat on the ground, with blood oozing from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, while her body was covered in cold sweat with her heart beating like crazy.

"How intriguing." Eshwar's cold, nearly emotionless voice trickled Hana's ears, forcing her to shudder uncontrollably.

'Now, it doesn't matter.....' Hana thought inwardly, and the words that came out of her mouth next shocked not only Eshwar, but also herself.

"I.... I will protect everyone!" Hana declared.

"....."

".... I'll kill you and.... Protect everyone and everything!"

"....."

"I'll protect everything from you!"

"....."

"I.... I, I will....."

"... Really?" Eshwar's voice and breath trickled in her ear.

"!!!!" Shuddering, Hana's eyes shot wide open as she gazed above from the corner of her eyes and noticed Eshwar's face which was leaned down, closer to her ear, while he still sat on his throne.

His pitch-black slits expanded ever so slightly as they began to turned white as he, seemingly, glared into her very soul as she soon felt something get a hold on her, she managed to flap her wings once with great difficulty as she shot back and crashed down on to the floor of the domain soon after.

THUD-!

"Aurkh!" Groaning, Hana glanced towards Eshwar's throne and noticed him holding onto something, which glimmered in a blinding orange light. Whatever it was, it oozed domineering absolute strength, and

'What is that?' As soon as that question flashed in her mind, a notification window popped up in front of her, making her eyes widened in pure horror.

DING-!

====

[Exclusive Quest]

==

[Protect yourself, your people, and your world]

[Reward: Control over your own soul]

[Time limit: Decided by the [God With A Shotgun]]

[Failure Penalty: Destruction of everything you tried to protect!]

====

"You are right, this is your soul." Eshwar said as he showed Hana her own soul that was in his hands while she was still alive.

"Hmmm.... More like a control panel. This is a control panel that is directly connected to your soul, so even though your soul is yours, I'll be the one controlling it. Let's see how interesting you'll make this story, for me." Eshwar said in rejoice.

"KHEK, KHEK, KHEK, KHUHAHAHAHA!!!"