Commerce Emperor

Chapter Sixty: Gold Devil and Silver-Tongue

Chapter Sixty: Gold Devil and Silver-Tongue

The chamber shook, and the world with it.

Tremors spread across the chamber, cracking walls of stone and causing the magma to ripple. Blinding light shone from within the cocoon of frost in which Soraseo’s allies entombed the Devil’s hoard. A maddening flow of essence gathered at the center of the room, turning the ice to steam and heralding the end of the world.

Chaos reigned in the room. Rubenzo slew his way through cultists trying to intercept him, his sword cutting through the air with grace and agility that rivaled Soraseo’s own. Their hooded ally among them—who Soraseo assumed to be the Spy—frantically removed the chains binding the hostages to the magma pool before it could overflow and kill them all. The Shadow loomed out of the mist with a thousand faces, with Chronius and Lady Mersie’s attempts to impale their back with daggers hardly doing more than frustrate the Demon Ancestor’s attempts to break through the ice and steal the Devil’s hoard for themselves.

The Shadow was now over twice the size of a man, with long and twisted limbs with too many joints. Nothing remained of Lord Oboro’s form besides remnants of tattered clothes. The creature’s shape was a parody of a humanoid, but its body… every single patch of skin was made from a tapestry of woven, screaming faces stitched together. Soraseo’s heart skipped a beat when her enhanced awareness of movements picked up the heads of her teacher and poor Erika among the abomination’s amalgamated flesh.

Part of them were still alive within that thing.

A single island of metal floated among that hideous sea of flesh: a familiar adamantine mask standing proudly atop a chimeric head, its stitched together eyes and lips providing a stark contrast to the screaming faces of the monster’s victims.

The Shadow could steal anything, but they were stuck with it. Stealing the ice would have entrapped them within it in place of the hoard, so they had no other choice than to attempt to break their way inside it. Essence swirled around their twisted face-hands as they called upon the knowledge of assimilated witchcrafters in an attempt to break the enchantment.

Soraseo would have wanted nothing more than to stop the Demon Ancestor, but the Knot cultists and their allies had recovered from their earlier surprise. The tri-faced gargoyle among them lumbered after Soraseo and nearly smashed her to fine paste with its massive arm, forcing her to engage it in battle while the fly-demon flew straight at the Shadow.

“Kill her!” Soraseo heard her brother scream, his shrieks of fear louder than the tremors and his finger pointed straight at Soraseo. He must have recognized her. “Kill her, kill her, kill her!”

Hearing her sibling call out for her death broke Soraseo’s heart, but not enough to throw off her aim. She dodged the gargoyle’s blow, circled them in the blink of an eye, and detected the slight chinks in their thick, stonelike skin. She pressed her blade against them and sliced through their hard flesh deep enough to draw blood. The creature let out a growl of pain as Soraseo left a deep gash in their chest and started cutting her way through its limbs.

Meanwhile, the fly-demon attempted to ram into the Shadow of Envy. The latter stopped them with a wave of their twisted hands; the demon’s insectoid face was torn from their body the moment they touched the Demon Ancestor and joined the Shadow’s collection of faces. The corpse turned into red steam in an instant.

Demons were no more than pale imitations of their predecessors.

Alas, the distraction proved effective. The glow inside the ice cocoon grew so bright that Soraseo had to cover her eyes so as not to go blind. A suffocating surge of essence more overwhelming than anything she had ever felt erupted across the chamber. The Shadow of Envy looked no more than a speck of blackness blasted by searing light.

And as the cocoon of ice crumbled from the pressure within it, Soraseo got a brief glimpse of what lay within; a great and mighty device of woven souls and gilded filigree, whose mere presence bent the very essence of reality around itself. Her heart sank into her chest as a terrible realization dawned upon her.

They had failed.

The Crown of Desire came screaming into the world, and a tide of gold swallowed them all.

I was tearing apart a demon with a well-placed cannonball when Mount Kazandu erupted.

The fog had grown so thick by then that I could barely see the smoking caldera and the dozen flying monsters protecting it. Beni and I had done our best to fend them off the small horde of screaming chimera and winged fiends while Marika drove the airship closer to the volcano’s summit.

We had been so close, only for a blinding flash to emerge from the caldera and briefly disperse the fog. I first thought the volcano had started to undergo an eruption, but saw no lava nor smoke sputtering out of it; only light. My mark burned beneath my glove with such heat that steam came out from out from below the leather, its agony sharp and familiar. My blood ran cold as I recognized the sensation.

My mark had only reacted like this once, back when Sebastian summoned the Devil of Greed in Archfrost.

“Eris!” I heard Marika shout through the loudspeakers, my heart racing with panic at the name. “Eris has collapsed! Someone–”

The world turned golden.

I reflexively covered my eyes as a tide of color swallowed the Colmar and silenced the symphony of battle. The screams of demons surrounding the airship and the thundering of our cannons both ended in a blink, snuffed out like dead candles blown by the wind. An oppressive aura fell upon my flesh and soul with the weight of mountains. The light hit me like a tidal wave and threw me back against a wall.

When the otherworldly shine dimmed enough for me to see again, the artillery room was in shambles. The cannons had been overturned, Ravengarde thrown to the side, and the fog had returned thicker than ever. The demons harassing us had vanished. Clouds now glittered like gold dust in the misty sky while a star shone brightly above Mount Kazandu with more essence than a kingdom’s worth of souls.

My stomach knotted in unease. The disaster we had struggled so much to stop had come to pass.

But we hadn’t failed yet.

“Beni!” I rose to my feet and went to check on my ally within Ravengarde. “Beni, are you well?!”

Ravengarde turned to face me. I hadn’t given the golem a voice to speak with yet, but its gears seemed to let out a sound that reminded me of a cry. Its back compartment opened slightly to reveal its contents. My blood turned to ice the moment I saw two gilded eyes staring back at me.

Beni had turned into a statue of gold, with fog flowing out of his screaming mouth frozen in time. His mark glowed like molten silver and proved unable to break its host from his prison.

This is like in Archfrost, I told myself in an attempt to soothe my wounded heart. I had already gone through a similar event in Archfrost when Sebastian sold his soul to his patron. Time had stopped for everyone until the deal’s completion, only to return to normal afterwards. This is just temporary. He’s fine.

But too many details made me doubt it though.

“No… no, this is different…” I muttered under my breath. Everyone had been turned to gold back when I entered the Golden World in Archfrost, yet Ravengarde remained active. Moreover, the clouds and fog continued to flow unimpeded. “Time hasn’t stopped.”

The statue Beni had become exhaled a wisp of mist. To my surprise, I saw a glimpse of images within it. Colors shifted to show a brief picture of Beni, Marika, and I in a forge working on a golem. I thought it might have been a memory until I saw Marika and I kiss briefly, with golden rings glittering on our hands.

Could this be an illusion? The fog was thick with Beni’s essence and feelings. Is that what he’s seeing inside that shell of gold?

Most importantly, if it could affect a Hero…

I pulled back from Ravengarde and looked outside a porthole. Our airship hovered over the volcano’s caldera, which gave me a good view of the mountain’s cliffs. The demons we had been fighting earlier had turned into statues of gold and crashed onto the ground below. How far did this sorcery extend?

My mark probably protected me by virtue of sharing the same class as the Devil of Greed, while Ravengarde might have been spared because of his unique golem physiology. I couldn’t tell yet.

First things first, I had to ensure that the others were safe. Marika’s silence made me suspect she had suffered the same fate as her son, and Eris… Eris might be in an even worse position.

“Protect Beni and go check on Marika,” I told Ravengarde. “I will do the same with Eris on the deck.”

I prayed to the Goddess that my gut feeling was wrong and that I wouldn’t find what I expected to.

The golem nodded and fulfilled my command. We split up, with Ravengarde traveling to the command bridge while I hurried to the deck. My steps echoed on the wood and steel as I exited the ship’s innards and rushed outside. The sky had taken on a golden hue while a bright star hovered high above the mountain, its glow piercing through the fog like a lighthouse.

Eris gazed at it with a hand on the arm rail, her back turned on me.

I immediately knew something was terribly wrong from her posture alone. Her back was too straight, her head held too high with a victor’s pride. I saw a faint wisp of smoke rising above her head while her left hand burned with a baleful glow. I dared to look at the latter, my fists tightened in dread when I recognized the source.

A golden, skull-faced coin mark seared to her pale skin.

“Eris?” I called out to her, unsure of what to expect.

She turned to face me.

Her face remained unchanged. She still looked like the same nun I had come to trust and love, but her gaze had gained a sharpness and overbearing pride I didn’t recognize. Moreover, her Wanderer’s Mark burned. It burned like coal and blackened her cheek around itself into a baleful scar, as if trying—and failing—to harm its holder.

“What’s wrong, handsome?” she asked me with Eris’ voice and that unmistakable, mischievous smile. “Don’t you like my new look?”

They had merged again.

Of course they did. If Daltia forged her Artifact from the hoard she had bound her soul to, there was only one place where her untethered demonic self could have gone after completing the ritual: back to its source. Back to Eris.

And how much would a few years of guilt and atonement weigh against centuries of sins? Not much.

“Eris,” I said with my rapier drawn. “You have to fight her.”

Daltia’s smile faded away, her eyes heavy with sadness. “I’m sorry, handsome, but you have it wrong,” she replied before taking a long deep breath. “There is no her, not truly. Never was.”

“I do not believe you,” I replied, my sword pointed at her neck. “Release her right now.”

Daltia’s head tilted to the side with what could pass for fondness. Seeing the fiend borrow Eris’ expression for herself disgusted me. “Do you think you can fight your way out of this?”

“If I must.” A prospect that I knew was doomed now that she had completed her Artifact and fully regained her Merchant powers. I might have had a chance with allies, but on my own… I wouldn’t bet on myself. “I don’t suppose you would be open to a trade?”

“For all of your wits, you remain a gallant fool at heart, Robin. I suppose that is why you swept me off my feet so easily.” Daltia closed her eyes. “But yes, I would rather talk things through… if you’ll listen.”

I scoffed, my mind furiously working to find a way out of this. The best I could do for now was to buy time. “Is this the moment when you offer me a place at your side?”

“Is this when you try to buy time in the hope your contingency plan will undo my work?” Daltia chuckled to herself. “I am not certain what you and Neferoa planned, though I have an idea.”

“Why don’t you teleport around to stop it then?” I stared at the Wanderer’s mark. “Unless your new class refuses to obey you?”

“You win some, you lose some.” Daltia looked at her left hand. “I am confident that your plan will fail, and I do want you to join me, yes. So why don’t you sheath that weapon of yours and join me for a little stargazing? My Crown of Desire is a fine piece of craftsmanship.”

I pondered my options carefully. She was right, my back-up plan would require some time to activate, if Neferoa could even trigger it. Even if I could defeat Daltia in a fight, victory might cost Eris’ life. She didn’t seem to know that Ravengarde was still active either. She was simply too confident in herself.

If I could find a way to jog Eris’ memory, maybe I could turn this around.

Daltia sighed. “Are you still under the misconception that I am possessed?”

“What other word is there for this situation?” I countered. “I have seen demons and heard Eris’ tale. She cast you away until you split up and became separate, if connected, entities.”

“She was wrong. Or rather, she was deceived.” Daltia turned to look at the floating crown. “Think about it, Robin. If you want to deceive the world, you have to start with yourself.”

A dark feeling sank into my gut. “What does that mean?”

“My amnesiac self told you that I had tried to sever my sins in an attempt to shed my past, but in truth, it’s the other way around. I temporarily cast away my body until the day I could reclaim it.” Daltia shook her head. “Certainly you must understand. You have purchased memories yourself and have nearly been overwhelmed. You have seen how malleable an identity is.”

My mind started to make sense of her words, but I refused to accept their meaning. “That’s a lie,” I protested. “The Wanderer’s mark wouldn’t have chosen you had your repentance been insincere.”

“I was sincere,” Daltia replied calmly. “Even Bel had a seed of doubt buried deep within his heart. There is a part of me that dithers and doubts… but it’s much smaller than you would expect. It simply looked bigger in a vacuum.”

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I didn’t believe her, but with few options available, I decided to play along until I could gather more information. Daltia was bound to slip up at one point or another.

I joined her at the arm rail while being careful not to show fear or unease. The two of us stood side by side, the first and latest Merchants of Pangeal facing the end of the world together.

Daltia was right about one thing: her Crown of Desire was indeed an impressive construct. I could barely distinguish the shape of the house-sized ring of golden faces with towers for horns within its otherworldly light. It glowed above Mount Kazandu with the shine of a newborn sun, with the fog swirling around it like a hurricane’s eye. Space rippled around it and cracks spread across the sky like a shattered mirror.

For the first time in my short life, I was laying eyes on an Artifact.

Whether this twisted, soulforged copy matched the real ones in power didn’t matter. It wielded more than enough. The very essence of the world bent to its will and rippled across the horizon.

How long until the Four Artifacts intervened? And at what cost?

“Marika and the others worked wonders,” Daltia commented. “I had feared this ship would crash without a pilot at the helm, but it remains steady.”

The world was undergoing a cataclysmic change because of her actions, and she was trying to open up with small talk?

“What have you done to them?” I asked, my gaze lingering on the golden demons below us. “To everyone?”

“I sent them to a happier place,” Daltia said calmly. “One where all their desires are fulfilled.”

I looked deeper at the mist swirling around the Colmar. More mirages appeared within the fog. I saw scenes representing people I didn’t recognize smiling, dancing, singing… but then I noticed a few familiar faces.

I witnessed a brief flash of Mersie in a regal gown, dancing with a girl who so closely resembled her that I could have mistaken her for a twin. The scene was quickly followed by a glimpse of Soraseo enjoying tea with her late mother and brother, and then Chronius observing his adoptive daughter receive a diploma of some kind… all blissful memories that never were.

Did those images come from my allies below? Were they trapped inside statues of gold too, exhaling dreams that would never come true?

“What are those?” I asked. “Illusions?”

“For now,” Daltia conceded. “This is what our friends see. Their ideal worlds.”

They aren’t your friends, I thought while holding my tongue. The scene I’d seen Beni exhale earlier appeared before me, but more vivid, its colors brighter. The illusion had gained more details and consistency. I looked at it with my essence sight and noticed two wills fueling this lie.

It was a shared dream.

“Beni is dreaming of a better family… with the father he deserves.” Daltia chuckled lightly. “His mother shares his dream and desire. I’m starting to suspect she might have a small crush on you, handsome.”

“You find this funny?” I asked, a scowl spreading across my face. Hearing her call me by Eris’ nickname filled me with disgust. “Is this your grand plan? To trap everyone on this planet in a fantasy while they remain prisoners of their own bodies?”

“I dislike the words ‘trap’ and ‘prisoners,’” Daltia argued, as if semantics mattered at this point. “As for your question, this is little more than a transitory step. For my Crown of Desire to bring about our ideal reality, enough people must believe in it first. Everyone will emerge from their golden shell once a new consensus is achieved.”

I had already guessed Daltia’s plan back in Archfrost, but the magnitude of her ambition gave me pause.

I finally began to grasp this fog’s true nature. Essence was shaped by thoughts and beliefs. Daltia’s witchcrafters had altered this land’s leylines to produce primal mists that would absorb its inhabitants’ feelings like a sponge soaked in water.

That must have been why she gathered the women prisoners inside Mount Kazandu. The Devil of Greed hadn’t been after their souls, but their intense fears and anxiety focused on a single point; enough raw feelings to ignite the fire that would consume the world.

If the Crown projected illusions in the minds of its victims, then their essence would reflect their altered state of mind the same way negative emotions twisted the landscape into a Blight. It would harness that power and weave those desires to strengthen itself into a feedback loop to fuel itself.

The consequences… the consequences would be catastrophic.

My mark had protected me from Blights and torrents of essence, while Roland’s own allowed him to briefly withstand all the hatred in the world. Yet neither Marika nor Beni could break out of this false reality on their own. No mind on Pangeal would resist the Crown’s pull for long.

And if its influence continued to expand, then it would enthrall all of mortalkind and rewrite reality itself in Daltia’s image. She would reshape the perception of all living beings until they acknowledged her as the world’s owner; at which point her Merchant power would turn that perception into reality.

Such was the gravity of the situation that the idea of tossing Daltia overboard crossed my mind. I had no guarantee that she would perish this way–while both Eris and I would probably die in the attempt–but the threat her plan presented to Pangeal was simply too cataclysmic for me to dither.

“Killing me won’t change anything, Robin,” Daltia said, having guessed what was on my mind. “The Crown needs no directions to fulfill people’s desires. It already acts on its own without guidance from my part.”

“The Artifacts won’t tolerate this madness,” I warned her. Selestine had already said as much. “They will sink this entire island before your Crown can extend its influence to the continent.”

Daltia answered my words with supreme confidence. “By the time they intervene, the Crown will have gained enough sway over the collective consciousness of the masses to triumph; and even if I’m wrong… well, you cannot change the world without taking a few calculated risks.”

“This can’t be what you want, Eris,” I said, trying one more time to appeal to the human buried deep within the Demon Ancestor. “You have to help me stop this.”

“I am Eris,” Daltia replied with a hint of frustration. “I have no other self, Robin, no more than Chronius’ alternate personality is a different soul than his own. There is just me, all of me, sins and guilt alike.”

My tongue clicked behind my teeth as I came up with a clever retort, only for it to die in my throat when I paid close attention to Daltia’s expression. Her eyes desperately avoided mine, to better hide the shame. She was biting her tongue, and her hands gripped the arm rail far too tightly.

She was the very picture of guilt. Genuine guilt.

The seed of doubt gnawed its way into my heart. I thought back to the day I saw her transform Sebastian into a demon, how she removed his soul and left his empty sins to occupy his flesh. I’d always thought Daltia created demons in order to gather followers and accumulate souls, but a new possibility suddenly came to mind.

Daltia was a Merchant, and we always sought to improve things. We kept trying to push the limits of our powers. We didn’t keep doing the same thing over and over again; we thrived in refining processes.

So why create one demented monster after another? Sebastian’s transformation turned him into an irrational beast unfit to lead the Knots. While Daltia started creating demons during the Sunderwar to accumulate souls and gather shock troops, it seemed strange that the likes of Chastel was the best she could produce after centuries of experimentation.

It didn’t make sense for a calculating mastermind like her to create that kind of minion, unless… unless their creation brought her closer to another, more insidious goal.

“You created demons as tests for yourself,” I realized, my voice breaking in utter disbelief. “You didn’t reject your demonic self. You tricked us by tricking yourself.”

A long silence stretched between us, until Daltia found the courage to meet my gaze again. This time, I saw a glimpse of Eris’ sorrow within them; an echo of the woman who had guided my journey from the beginning and become so much more than a friend.

“Tell me, Robin,” she said. “Why do you think your predecessors managed to seal away Bel by entombing his body, when his soul was sealed inside his sword?”

Her question gave me pause. I had seen Belgoroth control a custom golem from afar by imbuing it with his Berserk Flame, the same way a puppeteer manipulated a doll. He could project his will from afar, yes, and his sword influenced Beni’s father… but it never permanently possessed a new vessel. Belgoroth’s power had remained bound to his body, even though his soul long abandoned it for a soulforged container.

By contrast, I had the example of Colmar, whose soul lingered among the living by tethering itself to his apothecary outfit long after his own body rotted away. He had theorized that his ghost haunted his old clothes because he considered himself an apothecary through and through.

I suddenly realized that my friend had accidentally stepped on an important truth.

“Because the soul and the body are tied,” I guessed. “Our power is shaped by perception, both our own and that of others; and our very sense of self is linked to how we perceive our body.”

“When your predecessors sealed me away under the Lake of Greed, I became a prisoner inside my own flesh,” Daltia said while examining her mark. “My soul was bound to my coins, and I had enough sway to make deals with those who held them, but I hungered for more. I could never fully sever the link between my spirit and my body because I saw myself as Daltia Eris Belarra, the human Merchant chosen by the Goddess herself. To escape my prison, I had to first change my own perception of myself.”

The pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “That’s why you transform demons into monsters,” I realized to my utter horror. “To sever an untethered soul, you must twist the body until the spirit no longer recognizes it as part of itself.”

“I spent centuries refining the process on those who picked up my coins until I crafted an escape plan,” Daltia confirmed. “The seal that kept my body entombed was designed to hold the body of the Devil of Greed as the masses perceived me. If I could prune those parts of my identity into a bodiless entity bound to the coins on one side, and reshape what was left behind into a new person entirely–”

“Then the seal would fail to hold you both,” I muttered, my throat sore from the sting of betrayal. “But you knew this would leave your body without the mark and powerless at the Fatebinder’s mercy. You had to make sure your mortal half could put on a good show.”

Daltia nodded and let out a sigh heavy with sadness. “I removed critical memories and left behind all the parts of myself I knew would appeal to the Arcane Abbey. My doubts, my grief…” She chuckled to herself. “My sense of humor.”

“You turned yourself into the perfect actor, because you had forgotten you were playing a role.” I seethed at her deceit. “A repentant Demon Ancestor, with first-hand knowledge of the others’ secrets and weaknesses, was too attractive a catch for the Fatebinder.”

“My hope was that Lysandra Alexios would take me into her confidence once I had earned her trust,” Daltia confirmed. “I figured I could merge back with my deluded body when the time was right, or at least ensure I would remember my purpose on my own. I will admit it wasn’t a foolproof plan, but which one is when there are so many moving pieces?”

“You couldn’t possibly anticipate the Wanderer’s mark would choose your amnesiac self.”

“I did not. That was an utter fluke, albeit one that played right into my hands.” Daltia scratched the Wanderer’s mark, only to pull back her finger from the searing heat. “Your generation of Classes was designed with more safeguards than ours, but I suppose its creators couldn’t anticipate every loophole.”

She had woven a lie so perfect it fooled even a mark designed to avoid picking the wrong host. Rubenzo would be impressed.

Daltia tilted her head to the side in what could pass for sympathy. “If it can soothe your wounded pride, handsome, then you came very close to stopping me. Had Shamshir not interfered, you would have arrived before I could complete my ritual.”

Being told you were almost good enough was never much consolation. “Did you foresee their interference?”

“Not at all,” Daltia replied, and I believed her. “Shamshir always had a knack for ruining the best-laid plans of the powerful. It simply worked in my favor this time.”

All this effort to prevent this disaster, and it took only one jealous bastard to ruin it all.

I should have been furious at Daltia’s deceit. I had unknowingly danced to her tune since the moment she entered my life, letting her slither into my bed and sharing my secrets, only to learn it had all been an elaborate con. I’d been played so thoroughly that the entire world would pay for it.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t bring myself to hate Daltia. Not when I could see the genuine grief and remorse written all over her face. I trusted myself as a good judge of character, and she had little to gain from showing me this aspect of her; not after she had already won.

It hadn’t all been a lie.

“You were sincere during our time together,” I said. While Eris had forgotten her plan, she still acted in good faith. “Even if those feelings were born of deceit, they were genuine.”

“They were. The Eris of that time sincerely believed…” Daltia’s tongue clicked in her mouth. “I sincerely believed that I… I had to change and make up for what I did.”

I felt hope once again. “And you still do.”

“I am making up for my past crimes.” Daltia waved a hand at the Crown of Desire. “This is the light that shall guide the world to our utopia and mend this broken world. The blessing which the Goddess failed to provide.”

“A blessing you want to sell me.” I looked straight into her eyes. “For your sake, or mine?”

I knew the answer to that question the moment she faced me, her fidgeting hands joining together with genuine anxiety and fear of rejection.

Both.

The answer was both.

“I love you, Robin,” Daltia confessed from the bottom of her heart. “I love you for believing in me when so many others wouldn’t have. That hasn’t changed.”

“But you don’t love me enough to stop,” I guessed.

Daltia’s jaw clenched in deep grief. “Do you love me enough to sacrifice the world for my sake?”

A tense silence followed. We both knew where we stood.

“I love you,” I replied with a knotted stomach and utmost sincerity. I didn’t have the heart to lie to her; we had gone through so much together for her to believe me. “But if I have to choose between you and saving Pangeal from an eternity of slavery, then I will always pick the latter.”

“I figured as much,” Daltia replied calmly, without bitterness. “We are too much alike… but I still think you can come around to my point of view.”

And so did I.

My gut told me that Eris wasn’t lost to me yet. Deep down, a part of Daltia knew that she had strayed from the right path. She wanted to be proven wrong badly enough that it allowed her to create an entire alternate personality. I could still talk her out of this madness.

We would fight our last battle as Merchants do: with words and dreams.

“This plan of yours is insane,” I argued. “You speak of utopia, but it cannot be built on lies and false dreams.”

“How else can it exist?” Daltia put her hands behind her back, as she often did when we were together. “What is your ideal world, Robin? What are you fighting for?”

“A world of happiness and infinite possibilities,” I replied without hesitation. “A world where wealth is used to raise people towards prosperity rather than to oppress the weak, and where anyone has the chance to see their ambition realized.”

“That is the dream I fight for too.” Daltia gazed at the crown and the swirling visions reflecting on its fog of desires. “But what happens when a man’s ambition is to win over a girl’s heart, and that woman does not return their feelings? When a human’s dream is to kill the beastman next door because they do not look like them? What values are dreams to someone burdened by sickness that binds them to a bed, or to a person who lacks the innate talent required to fulfill them? The truth is, Robin, that universal happiness is impossible because individual desires will never stop clashing, and not everyone has the means to make their ambitions a reality.”

“So you would rather have all of them stay unfulfilled?” I waved a hand at Mount Kazandu. “None of the people you’ve trapped in shells of gold are fulfilling their ambitions. They are no more than dreamers hooked to a hallucinogenic drug. Is that your vision of human potential?”

“As I told you, this is a transitory state,” Daltia replied. “My Crown will harmonize all these individual visions and ambitions into a harmonious whole; an ideal reality without conflict nor strife.”

“Is that why Marika imagines me as her loving and reliable husband?” I asked with a frown. “Because I would be an acceptablefit that matches her son’s ideal for a father figure?”

“What can I say, handsome?” Daltia gave me that oh-so-familiar smile of hers. “You are a popular person.”

“But was I picked because I am the perfect fit, or because I am a good enough one?” I was beginning to see the inherent flaw in Daltia’s project. “Marika didn’t love me enough to fight you for my hand, after all.”

“Maybe she was afraid of confessing her feelings, or she didn’t wish to ruin our friendship,” Daltia countered. “This proves my point. Human desires will always conflict in our current reality without a greater power that can satisfy them.”

“But that’s the thing, not all of our desires are satisfied even in that ideal world, nor in a way that’s fulfilling,” I pointed out. “Marika’s dream has trapped her in a past that never was. She made so much effort to put Will’s abuse behind her and became a stronger person for it. Yet instead of honoring her growth, your Artifact simply erased her past sorrow.”

“There is no inherent value in suffering,” Daltia replied with a shrug. “Misery does not build character; it has no point. We simply seek meaning when there is none to soothe our pain. Perhaps this dream isn’t the exact situation Marika would have consciously wanted, but it is one that grants her happiness nonetheless.”

“And there’s the issue,” I pointed out. “When there is a conflict between irreconcilable desires, your Crown will choose what makes us happy. When it can’t grant us what we want, it will simply change what we want.”

I caught a brief seed of doubt in Daltia’s gaze. “An academic distinction.”

“But one that makes a world of difference,” I countered. “How can you create a universe of happiness and possibilities where people aren’t free to choose what they want?”

“Should they be free to choose war?” Daltia replied firmly. “To choose wrath, jealousy… greed? To choose oppression and racism? You cannot create a utopia without erasing human frailties.”

“And who would choose what the world needs or not?” I argued. “You?”

“God.” Daltia pointed at her Artifact. “Why do you think I crafted this Crown instead of claiming this power for myself?”

Her response took the wind out of my sails. Daltia studied me for a moment, then looked at the golden sky. Only then did I truly understand her plan, and that I had it all wrong.

She never sought to create an Artifact to replace the Goddess.

She wished to create a deity that would fulfill her prayers.

“Pangeal is an orphaned land abandoned by its creator and left adrift,” she declared. “It needs a guide, but unlike Cipar, I never forgot that I was a flawed human being. Since I couldn’t find a worthy judge… I created one.”

I narrowed my eyes. “By merging the souls of the damned?”

“How else could it understand the needs of humankind?” Daltia countered. “The Goddess could never see the world through our eyes, while we mortals filter reality through our limited perception… so I pooled millions of them. I created an impartial entity that would understand everyone, but never favor anybody over another.”

I thought Daltia took a divine appearance because she wished to replace the Goddess, but I now realized her ambition had always been much greater. She wished to surpass her creator by fixing the world she abandoned, the same way I sought to see Archfrost prosper until it no longer needed me.

I pondered my words for a moment when I heard it in the distance. A distant echo resonated across the mist, the forest, and the land; a high-pitched note spoken by a single voice through countless mouths.

A song to shake the earth.

“What is this?” Daltia frowned while gazing at the horizon. “Neferoa’s ploy?”

I smiled ear to ear. “My counterargument.”