Chapter 3: A Wicked God's Judgement

-----

With the God of Darkness and Sins and its children weakened, the Demon Empire did not have any divine entity to protect them from the Heroes charge and the Bright Gods, the villages that Veronica had nurtured for so long were burned and the people killed.

Veronica who still was in her phase of development was forced to protect her Empire as she saw her trusted subordinates and friends die for her cause.

She felt utterly hopeless and useless for making such talented Demons sacrifice themselves for herself.

When her eyes finally meet with the Heroes, she recognized most of their faces. They were all her coworkers.

And the leading Hero, the new Light Hero, was the same executive that invited her to a party after work in her first life.

"This is a terrible joke" she muttered.

"Demon Queen Anastacia, your Empire of monsters shall be eradicated on this day! For the Sins of your God and your Race, you are condemned to death by the word of our God!" shouted a Priestess, who was also one of Veronica's coworkers.

Veronica hated such hypocrisy. Why did the Humans deem her whole existence as sinful? What did this wicked God of 'Light and Righteousness' teach these people? They did not even sound like her coworkers anymore but as wicked fanatics.

"You have taken everything from me… I cannot escape, I shall accept my fate! But I will take you all with me!" shouted Veronica, mustering all of her bravery and magic energy, she enhanced her entire body with Mana and created a powerful incantation, the one she had prepared for this very moment. If she was going to be hopelessly killed no matter what, she wanted to take as many with her as possible, to delay the annihilation of her brethren.

"Careful, the Demon Queen is charging her diabolic magic!" shouted the Priestess, creating a bright magic barrier, however, Veronica's magic was only Spirit Magic, it wasn't 'Dark Magic', which was weak to Holy Magic, Spirit Magic represented all the attributes of nature, and easily bypassed the Priest's defenses.

The Heroes braced themselves as they unleashed their ultimate techniques and spells while defeating Veronica's subordinates and trusted aides.

Veronica managed to mortally wound a lot of the heroes she fought, but there were many healer-type heroes amongst the large group, easily healing the wounded from almost death's doors. Veronica was frustrated as no matter how much she tried to kill them, they would recover as if nothing and get back to the offensive.

Even when she tried to kill many of the healers, because there were many, they healed within each other almost endlessly. Alongside this, many of them were being enhanced by a mysterious divine power granted to them by the Gods.

Although Veronica was blessed by the God of Darkness and Sins, she did not receive any significant boost in her strength or magic when the fight started, most likely because her god was way too busy fighting the other gods to grant her any help… even the gods allied to her were struggling just as much as her-

As the fight went by, Veronica's body was tattered in blood, as much as she tried, the Hero Party was immensely strong, probably each Hero she was fighting was thrice as strong as her, and each party member worked perfectly together, it was overwhelming… she was really the weakest Demon Queen.

"Demon Queen Anastacia, your struggle is hopeless, surrender and I shall grant you a swift and painless death!"

"Surrender, you sinful being!"

"You have done many atrocities, repent for your sins!"

"You monster, repent!"

"The world will be a better place when we finally defeat you and your diabolic kin!"

The heroes shouted at Veronica as they fought against her from all sides, she was barely hanging on her life, whenever her Mana was to completely deplete, it would be her end.

"What are you all talking about? I have not done any of the atrocities you are accusing me of! These last seventeen years I have only been trying to raise this dying Nation from its inevitable destruction!" shouted Anastacia, trying to make the Heroes enter in reason.

But it was useless.

"Lies! The god himself has told us of your atrocities!"

"How could he lie after all he went through?!"

"He raised us since we were children, he's our father!"

"Silence, you diabolic woman! You're part of what has made our father so sad for so long! Your evil kin that only exists to bring destruction and despair to humans shall be exterminated!"

Flash!

The heroes combined their attacks into a powerful barrage of different elements combined, Anastacia was only good at offensive magic, and her barriers were not near enough to resist the immense onslaught capable of annihilating entire mountains.

Clash!

Anastacia was sent flying to her throne, falling over it and destroying, her entire and delicate body was filled with deadly wounds… she was in her last moments.

"Ugh…! Such bitterness… So hateful… I trained so much… yet is this here where it ends? I was… so utterly hopeless from the beginning…?"

In her last moments, she infused her entire Mana and Soul into her Arcane Heart, a special organ that the Baphomet possesses, and approached the Light Hero, the former coworker that she once had a crush with… but he was not the same as before, he had been completely brainwashed by the God of Light and Righteousness.

"I once thought that we would one day build up to something… but I suppose that those dreams I had in Earth were nothing…" she said, her chest shining brightly in an intense magic light. Veronica's eyes gleamed in melancholy.

"Huh? Wait, those words…? But God said that your soul… V-Veronica?" the Hero of Light wasn't capable of evading as he was wounded by one of Veronica's previous attacks and had his sword shattered by the magic of one of her perished subordinates. However, the moment she muttered those words, he suddenly thought that the Demon Queen was the reincarnated Veronica.

He was told by God himself that her soul was caught by the evil God of Darkness and Sins and was held prisoner by it.

The Hero of Light was the one that invited Veronica to that party after work on Earth. He had been interested in her when he was living on Earth, and since his reincarnation in Kritias, he looked for her reincarnation all around the Human Nations, but never found her.

The sudden realization that Anastacia could be Veronica, made him regret immensely what he had been doing, and part of the God of Light encroachment on his mind faltered.

But it was too late…

Just as Veronica was about to at least take the great protagonist of this crusade, a blinding light took a hold of her sight.

"Insolent filth! Do you dare use such tricks?! As the supreme authority of Kritias, and as the representation of Law, I order you to perish!" shouted the voice of an old man that was heard through the entire world, this was the God of Light and Righteousness who had successfully defeated the God of Darkness and Sins while Veronica fought against the Reincarnated Heroes.

The piercing light that possessed the charged power of the Light Divinity of the God of Light sliced Veronica's soul in half. A terrible pain like she had never experienced before filled all of her senses, this was the pain of the soul, hundreds of times greater than physical pain.

"Wait! Stop!!!" shouted the Light Hero, finally realizing who was truly Anastacia.

She could not do anything but shriek in agony as her former coworkers spectated her physical body and her soul disintegrate from the World of Kritias by the Divine Authority of their benefactor.

"Veronica!!!" shouted the Light Hero.

The other Heroes tried to stop him from approaching the corpse, but the Light Hero threw them away. His tears began to flow from his eyes as he had finally realized the horrible mistake that he had committed.

"What are you talking about?"

"She's finally dead! God has helped us!"

"Hey, don't touch that, it's disgusting…"

"You fool! She was Veronica! She was Veronica this whole time!" shouted the Hero of Light, but the rest of the Heroes only gave him strange looks.

"Have you been brainwashed by her charm?"

"Let's bring him to an infirmary, his wounds are still open!"

"He must be hallucinating because of blood loss, hurry up!"

The Hero of Light grabbed on the calcinated corpse of Veronica as he fell unconscious due to the blood loss and was carried to an infirmary where several priests and healers recovered his wounds.

As Veronica's mind blacked out, death embraced her once again…

The trauma of such pain made her mind numb, to the point that the wound created in her soul seemed to resemble a void… just how merciless could this God be against a mere mortal?

However, amongst the pain, she was able to recognize the cursed holographic windows that once announced her first death.

[Second Life Ended]

[Resetting Host Soul…]

[System Error]

[Synapsis not loaded]

[Rebooting…]

[System Error]

[Samsara System not loaded successfully…]

[System Error]

"Huh…?! What?"

[System Error]

Veronica's mind was filled with 'System Errors', the System created by the entity that decided in reincarnating her seemed to have some glaring issues.

[Unidentified Authority has taken 'Host' control]

"Ugh…!"

[Samsara System has been successfully integrated!]

"Integrated? But wasn't it already integrated?"

[Samsara System successfully rebooted]

[Administrating 'Host' Soul and '%34n' Soul into [Third Life]

Veronica's soul was once again, for the third time, reincarnated.

However, she had no idea who was this '%34n' and why was it reincarnating alongside her… and who was that 'unidentified entity'?

-----

Second Life, Kritias (1), born in the year 1.300.666 and died in the year 1.300.683.

[Name: Anastacia

[Race: Spiritual Baphomet Witch Queen (Mother: Elf)

[Age: 17

[Titles: Demon Queen, Beastmen Queen, Monster Queen.

[Type: Demon/Demi-human.

[Rank: 11

[Level: 13/100

[Job: Hollow Spiritual Witch Demon Queen.

[Job History: Apprentice Mage, Apprentice Spirit Caster, Apprentice No-Attribute Mage, Spirit Caster, No-Attribute Mage, Demon Mage, Appraisal User, All Spirit User, Hollow Witch, Demon Mage Princess, Mental Library, Spiritual Witch, Spiritual Demon Witch, Memory Recreator, Hollow Demon Queen, Baphomet Witch, Librarian Mage, Spiritual Witch Queen, Mind Mage, Spiritual Guider, Grand Spiritual Witch Queen, Demon Guider.

[Level: 63/100

[Health Points: 19.435/19.435

[Mana Points: 170.262/170.262

[Strength: 2364

[Defense: 3214

[Magic: 73.730

[Resistance: 42.820

[Agility: 36.144

[Passive Skills]

[Memory Retention; Level 4]

[Special Five Senses; Level 6]

[Soul Form; Level 1]

[Mana Enlargement; Level 5]

[Magic Enlargement; Level 5]

[Dark Vision; Level 4]

[Super Mana Regeneration; Level 8]

[Deviant Life Perception; Level 7]

[Self-Enhancement; Demon Empire; Level 7]

[Abnormal Status Resistance; Level 5]

[Chant Revocation; Level 9]

[Precise Mana Control; Level 8]

[Guidance: Spiritual Demon Path: Level 8]

[Spiritual Demon Path Enticement: Level 8]

[Active Skills]

[Hardworking; Level 7]

[Appraisal; Level 6]

[Spiritual Demon Queen Magic; Level 7]

[Hollow Demon Queen Magic; Level 6]

[Stealth; Level 7]

[Archery; Level 4]

[Throwing, Level 4]

[Rapier Technique; Level 6]

[Demon Queen Staff Technique; Level 6]

[Unarmed Fighting Technique; Level 3]

[Coordination; Level 7]

[Commanding; Level 8]

[Limit Breakthrough; Spiritual Demon Queen Magic; Level 9]

[Limit Breakthrough; Hollow Demon Queen Magic; Level 9]

[High-Speed Thought Processing; Level 9]

[Multi-Cast; Level 9]

[Hollow Spiritual Aura; Level 8]

[Unique Skills]

[Divine Protection of the God of Darkness and Sins]

[Arcane Heart; Level 10]