║[SYSTEM NOTICE]║
║You have made your first choice in the game.║
║Every choice alters the flow of fate. Some paths are safe, others perilous. Some appear equal, yet lead to wildly different ends. Even doing nothing changes everything.
║The story will remember what you did and what you didn’t.║
< LOADING >
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< PROCESSING >
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< COMPLETE >
║[SYSTEM UPDATE]║
║New Mechanic Unlocked: Dual Experience System║
║Everything you do now contributes to one of two paths:║
║Positive EXP — earned through virtuous, constructive, or redemptive actions.║
║Negative EXP — earned through selfish, destructive, or morally questionable actions.║
║Both are valuable. Both are necessary.║
║The Digital Store contains items and abilities that require specific types of EXP. Some also demand both, for balance is the currency of consequence.║
║In short: you can’t stay purely good, nor purely evil. To survive this world, you’ll have to sin a littleor save someone you’d rather not.║
Cressida cupped her chin, "So the game doesn’t actually care what I do. I just... don’t die. That’s it."
Honestly, she’d been expecting something far worse. There were no invisible chains or godly voices forcing her to act; just the crushing reality of her current identity and the mess it came with.
Ah. That means I have to meet her, right?
No. No, no. I can still avoid her. She’s literally my downfall.
And the heroine, too...
And the male leads.
Fantastic.
Everyone in this story was a walking disaster, and she was the idiot doomed to orbit them. No matter where she turned, there was a cliff waiting behind someone’s shoulder and she’d probably be the one shoved off it.
In the middle of the night, Cressida hastily woke her servants to help her prepare and even cleaned her own room first.
The Blackthorne household was a distant one, in blood, in heart, in everything. They never cared where she went or what she did, which explained the boisterous, attention-starved girl she used to be.
"Miss, are you sure about going out this late?" the coachman asked, his breath visible in the cold air.
"Yes, I’m quite sure," she replied softly.
Very fucking sure, actually.
As the carriage rolled away, the grand silhouette of the Blackthorne estate grew smaller until it was nothing but a shadow swallowed by the night.
***
Long ago, creation existed without barriers.
Humans dined beside other species, and the beings now called monsters lived peacefully, sustained by what the land and sea offered. Disasters came and went, as they always did, but none compared to the cataclysm known as the Disequilibrium.
It began when the Dweller of the Dark Tide was torn apart from the Dweller of the Light Tide; two entities who once embodied the world’s harmony, swimming together in the same cosmic sea.
When they were separated, the world itself split in kind.
Creatures of the Light Tide migrated to one half of the world, those of the Dark Tide to the other.
And thus, day and night became divided eternally, one side bathed in endless sunlight, the other trapped beneath perpetual moonlight.
No one knew who or what caused the split. Myths disagreed; blame was convenient. Races turned on each other, each convinced the other side had stolen their sky.
The creatures of the Dark Tide lost their sanity to silence and shadow.
Stripped of the light that once tempered them, they grew restless; feral things that flinched from the sun yet hungered for what it represented.
Among them rose one of the most infamous lineages: the Vampires, who drank blood not for survival, but as a desperate attempt to mimic the warmth they could no longer feel.
Then came the prophecy:
When the Dweller of the Dark Tide is reborn in human flesh, the balance shall return.
But centuries passed, and peace became little more than legend.
People grew accustomed to the fractured world, and when they spoke of the prophecy now, it wasn’t to honor her destiny.
It was to claim her power to control the world.
To cut things to the chase, Cressida was basically stuck in a vampire romance novel with a lot of erotic bite scenes.
"Mmmph... where... where are we...?"
When Cressida stirred awake, the world outside was still drenched in moonlight. Not that it mattered, this side of the world never had a dawn. Eternal night, eternal inconvenience.
But something was off.
The carriage wasn’t moving. Not a single creaking of wheels and rhythmic clatter.
Her brows knit. Why the hell aren’t we moving?
She pushed aside the curtain and blinked.
Outside stood a mansion, massive, gilded, and far too unfamiliar. Definitely not hers.
’Wait. No. No, no, no, no. I told him, specifically told him, to drive past the border!’
The carriage door opened with a slow creak. Her coachman stood there, hat in hand, guilt painted all over his face.
"I-I apologize, my lady," he stammered. "But... she ordered me to bring you here."
Her eyes narrowed. "She? Who the hell—"
He hesitated, lowering his gaze. "Do you not recognize the estate, my lady? This is... Lady Agrona’s domain."
"W–W–WHAT?!" Her voice cracked into an unholy octave.