overlord #Ainz #fanfic #overlord #Overlord #overlord_fanfiction #overlord_volume17 #dark_Fantacy #Fantasy #horror #villain #anti-hero #Theocracy #Nazarick #Ainz_Ooal_Gown #Magic #NPC #Zesshi_Zetsumei #Ainz #MMORPG #Shalltear #Albedo #Demiurge #Sorcerer_King #YGGDRASIL #Aura #Mare #kill #Fanfiction #ANTIHEROThe Awakening of the Failed Trump Card
[The Frozen Prison — Room of Truth]
Consciousness returned not as a sunrise, but as a drowning victim breaking the surface of icy water.
The first sensation was the smell. It was a thick, cloying scent—a mixture of rusted iron, antiseptic herbs, and the sweet, copper tang of old blood.
Antilene Heran Fouche, the girl who had called herself Zesshi Zetsumei, opened her eyes.
Her vision swam, blurring in the dim, flickering light of magical torches. She tried to move her hand to rub her eyes, but the metal groaned in protest. She was suspended vertically, her wrists and ankles shackled by heavy chains that pulsed with a faint, suppressing magic. She was stripped of her armor, clad only in a thin, ragged tunic that offered no warmth against the biting chill of the room.
Where...?
Memory crashed into her mind like a physical blow.
The Elf Country. The Dark Elf girl with the timid eyes. The staff that struck with the weight of a collapsing mountain.
I lost.
The realization was a pill so bitter it nearly made her retch. She, the Overlord of the New World, the guardian of humanity, the strongest existence... had been treated like an unruly child and beaten into submission.
"Oh my, oh my. It seems our little guest has returned to the land of the living."
The voice was wet and high-pitched, grating against her ears. Antilene forced her head up.
Standing before her was a nightmare given flesh. It was a bloated, corpulent mass of greyish flesh, vaguely humanoid but distorted beyond reason. Tentacles writhed where fingers should be, and its face was a grotesque canvas of stitched skin and sunken eyes. It wore a leather apron stained with fluids that Antilene prayed were merely water.
This was a nightmare manifested.
But for the first time in her life, Antilene did not feel the thrill of battle. She felt the hollow pit of dread, the realisation hit her.
(I am in their stronghold. The Sorcerer King's domain.)
The name of that Undead give chills through her bones , a being that plan so far ahead, buy a Attacking the kingdom, making theocracy finish their war with the elves and then dealing a critical below in the right moment to the theocracy this was a master stroke, a genius plan being that could do that is undeniably A True Monster.
She looked away from the creature, staring at the damp stone floor. A terrible clarity began to wash over her, stripping away the armor of arrogance she had worn for centuries.
Regret.
It welled up in her chest, hot and suffocating.
For years, she had lived selfishly. She had spent her days bored, sometimes trying new things, clones, jewellery, foods and sitting on her Rubik's Cube, mocking the Cardinals, waiting for a man strong enough to defeat her so she could bear his child, well that was a lie a front to stop the Cardinals from making a mach for her, She had treated her position as the Extra Seat not as a duty, but as a curse, a shackle that bound her to weaklings she despised.
How foolish I was.
She had desperately wanted to be defeated.
She had prayed for someone stronger to appear.
Be careful what you wish for, a voice in her head whispered.
Because she had lost, the shield of the Slane Theocracy was shattered.
She thought of the Cardinals. Old, wrinkled men who constantly nagged her, who looked at her with a mix of fear and reverence.
She had hated them. But now, in the silence of this torture chamber, she realized what they truly were: desperate men holding back the tide of extinction.
They had relied on her. The millions of citizens in the Theocracy—the farmers, the merchants, the children playing in the streets of the capital—they all slept soundly at night because they believed their country would protect them and their heroes will protect them the Black Scripture and Zesshi Zetsumei were watching over them.
(I failed them. I failed them all.)
Tears, unbidden and stinging, pricked at the corners of her eyes.
She had led the wolf right to the flock.
The Dark Elf—Mare—had seen her use The Goal of All Life is Death. They knew she had watched the battle against the Vampire. The Sorcerer King was not a fool; he would trace the thread back to the source.
"The Theocracy..." she rasped, her voice dry and cracked. "They... don't stand a chance."
It wasn't a question. It was a verdict.
If beings like that Dark Elf were merely subordinates, then the Sorcerer King was a god. And not a benevolent god of the Six, but a calamity.
The Theocracy's scriptures, their magic, their faith... it would all burn. The people she had looked down on, the human bloodline she had sought to protect by breeding a stronger heir—it was all going to be erased.
And it was her fault.
If she hadn't been so arrogant... If she had taken the threat seriously... If she had simply killed the Elf King and retreated…
(Mother... is this the hell you lived in? No, this is worse. I wasted my life hating you, and I wasted my strength waiting for a romance that was never coming. And now, the price of my vanity will be paid in the blood of innocent people.)
She closed her eyes, a single tear tracking through the grime on her cheek.
"Oh? Are we crying already?" The bloated torturer—Neuronist Painkill—giggled, the sound wet and shivering.
"We haven't even started the fun part yet! Ainz-sama has given me very specific instructions to extract everything you know. Every. Little. Things."
Neuronist waddled closer, selecting a long, thin needle from a tray of horrors.
"You have memories of a certain item, don't you? Downfall of Castle and Country?"
Antilene's heart stopped.
They knew.
"Don't worry," Neuronist cooed, bringing the needle close to Antilene's eye. "We have an eternity to discuss it. And since you are a half-elf, you are quite durable, aren't you? That makes me so happy."
Antilene did not scream. Not yet. She simply stared into the darkness of the ceiling, her heart filled not with fear of the pain to come, but with an overwhelming, crushing sorrow for the world she had doomed.
(Forgive me. Captain. Cardinals. Everyone. The monster is coming, and I am the one who opened the door.)