I Am The Game's Villain Chapter 823: Blood Wedding [End]

"We are gathered here today, this morning, before this memorial, to mourn our losses.

That dreadful night, now seven days behind us, is one no one will ever forget. We all witnessed it. We all remember the moon stained red, a red that should have been nothing more than the sacred sign of the Blood Moon Festival, a time meant for cohesion, for understanding, for allowing the other races of Sancta Vedelia to learn more of the customs and traditions of the Vampire people. It was meant to be a sacred celebration, a day of union, a day when our Prophetess should have been wed and honored before all.

Instead, it became a nightmare.

A nightmare that descended upon every one of us.

Too many tragedies have struck our lands over the course of this past year. Zestel has suffered. Dolphis has suffered. Fangoria has suffered. Vanadias has suffered. Elyen Kiora has suffered. Valachia has suffered. Ravenia has suffered. And now, Central Vedelia itself has suffered. Today, we do not mourn only the dead of Central Vedelia. We mourn every victim of every attack that has scarred our Kingdoms and our lands this past year. All of it must be remembered. All of it must be honored. For this year will remain in the memory of Sancta Vedelia as one of the darkest, hardest, and most painful in our history.

But mourning must not become our end.

It must become our beginning.

However difficult it may be, we must move forward from this grief. We have lost fathers and mothers. We have lost brothers and sisters. We have lost wives and husbands, daughters and sons, friends and loved ones beyond count. And it is because we have lost them that we must keep going, for their sake. Because if this past year has taught us anything, it is that Sancta Vedelia has many enemies. Our lands have many enemies. Our Kingdoms have many enemies. There are many who envy our sacred Tree, many who covet what we have built, many who would see our people divided and broken.

And not all of those enemies come from beyond our borders.

The Utopian War showed us that much. It showed us that even among our own, betrayal can take root. That even among kin, enemies may rise. But that must not become a reason for us to turn our rage, our grief, and our bitterness against one another. Not today. Not now. Because today we stand here united by one truth above all others: the pain of loss.

Humans, Vampires, Werewolves, and Elves, we are all part of the same story, and on that night we all suffered the same wound.

Our greatest strength has always been unity.

Eight hundred years ago, when the First Apostle had turned mad and threatened all of Sancta Vedelia, it was the unity of all races that saved this land. We set aside our differences. We stood together. And because we stood together, we prevailed. From that day onward, Sancta Vedelia grew stronger.

The Blood Moon War was overcome through our unity.

Deborah Dolphis’s attack was defeated through our unity.

Utopia was brought down because all the Kingdoms gathered beneath one banner and fought as one.

And seven days ago, once again, all of us fought together despite our sorrow, despite our fear, despite our pain, and once again, we overcame our enemies through unity.

So now we must learn from what has happened.

We must learn from our mistakes.

And from this day forward, we must show even greater unity than before, for the sake of the future that still lies ahead of us.

The Supreme Lord Eden has not abandoned us.

He has granted us his blessing. He has bestowed upon us his divine power, allowing us to summon his Heroes."

At those words, the crowd immediately erupted into cheers, a sudden wave of sound breaking over the square like a release of breath long held in grief.

"We have not been forsaken," Alector continued, raising his voice above the cries. "Our Gods are watching over us. And Sancta Vedelia, as it always has, will rise victorious through every conflict that seeks to break it.

So, people of Central Vedelia, no, people of all Sancta Vedelia, let us mourn today.

But let us also hope for tomorrow.

Let us work together to build a Sancta Vedelia even stronger than the one that was wounded here, so that from Eden’s heaven, our families and our friends may look upon it and rejoice.

We have the Prophetess of the Holy Tree.

We have the Apostle of the Lord Guardian Nihil.

We have the Goddess Freyja, Mother of the Tree, watching over us.

So long as we stand together, nothing and no one will ever defeat our will.

We will endure.

And we will grow stronger."

When he finished, the cheers swelled even louder than before. Humans, Elves, Werewolves, and Vampires all raised their voices together, without distinction. Children, adults, and elders alike cried out as one, united for a moment not by race or station, but by shared grief, shared faith, and the hope that Sancta Vedelia could still rise from all it had suffered.

Alector exhaled softly as he watched the gathered crowd erupt into cheers.

At last, he had found the right words.

"That was well done," Duncan praised quietly from beside him.

Alector kept his gaze on the people below.

"Let us hope this is the beginning of a new era for Sancta Vedelia," he said. "I meant every word."

"I know," Duncan replied with a nod. "And I hope for it as well."

"That was moving, Alector," Beatrice said with a faint smile. "And it was wise of you not to mention the names of those two heinous criminals."

"It is a moment of mourning," Alector answered. "We must nurture hope, not hatred. That is not what Sancta Vedelia should become. It must never become what Utopia became."

"Wise words," Beatrice said. "The people clearly appreciated them. I only hope they reach more than the common crowd. It would be good if they reached the upper circles as well."

The common people were easier to move, especially when such words came from the revered Guardian of the Tree. But the nobles were different. The Council of Central Vedelia, above all, would not be swayed so simply. For many of them, the speech was only a necessary performance, a way to quiet unrest before it spread further. Still, Alector had been clever enough to invoke the Hero Summoning at the right moment. That had given the people something stronger than grief to cling to.

"There will never be true unity with Central Vedelia," Tanya said then, her voice edged with open scorn. "They care only for themselves and for the Tree. As long as the Tree remains untouched, they would not care if the surrounding Kingdoms protecting them were wiped from the map."

"Difficult to deny," Claudia added shortly.

Namys let out a soft sigh.

"Please, do not be so negative. If that unity does not exist, then we must make it possible."

"Only you can truly do that, Alector," Beatrice said, glancing toward the old man. "You have always been the bridge between the Great Houses and Central Vedelia."

"I will do what is necessary," Alector replied solemnly.

Not long after, the cheers finally began to fade.

Then, all at once, silence fell.

For ten long minutes, everyone stood in silence to mourn the dead.

No one spoke. No footsteps disturbed the stillness. No voices rose above it. Only the occasional muffled sob could be heard somewhere within the crowd, small and broken against the great quiet. If anything, the silence made the reality of their loss feel more vivid.

When the ten minutes ended, the memorial ceremony was declared complete.

Slowly, the crowd began to disperse, though many remained behind. Some stayed to admire the Memorial itself. Others simply lingered to speak quietly with one another. Grief had drawn them together, and for a little while, strangers of every race spoke as if they had always known each other, sharing pain that needed no introduction.

In that sense, it truly became a moment of cohesion.

A fragile one, perhaps, but real.

The same could not be said quite as easily of those upon the stage.

Among the nobles, similar exchanges were taking place, but the atmosphere there remained far more strained. Politeness held, but only barely. Beneath every word there was tension, and old resentment not yet buried.

Some of them had already begun to leave, in fact, as though their attendance had been no more than an obligation fulfilled, the signing of a presence before returning to matters they deemed more important.

Celeste meanwhile stayed silently staring ahead at nothing in peculiar or perhaps just the horizon.

Then without much signs, she just turned on her heel to leave.

"Celes..." Evan called her.

She couldn’t just leave like that and this fast, as the Prophetess.

"I just need a break," Celeste replied and walked offf.

Her father and brother didn’t stop her.

Celeste walked back but didn’t go through the memorial, instead she circled around until going in the side before she leaned against the white outside walls.

Reaching out her hand then inside her dress, she took a folded letter with trembling hands.

Opening it, she read the lines again.

[

Celeste,

If you are reading this, then I am most likely dead.

I am writing this before that wedding chosen for you and Cyril.

Truly, there could hardly have been worse timing, especially when I happened to be absent. You were probably expecting me to be there, yet instead I was away somewhere with Alicia. Still, believe me when I say that nothing about this could have been prevented. Even if I had been there from the beginning, things would not have changed so easily.

And yet, when I returned and learned about the wedding, I cannot pretend it did not affect me.

To put it simply, it displeased me more than I can properly describe.

Finding out that the first woman I fell in love with in Sancta Vedelia was about to be married to perhaps the most despicable man in all of Sancta Vedelia was not something I could accept calmly. Especially not knowing how much you loathed him yourself.

The first thing I wanted to do, the very moment I learned the truth, was take you away.

That is the kind version of it.

Perhaps, deep down, that is even what you expected of me, despite how harshly I rejected you. Perhaps some part of you still believed I would come for you in the end.

But I was not in a position to do such a thing.

Not because I did not want to.

Because I could not take the responsibility that would follow.

If I had truly been ready to bear the consequences, to take care of you, to protect you afterward, then I might already have abducted you from that marriage and dealt with the rest later. But I was not ready. I could not offer you that certainty, not when I myself was standing on such unstable ground.

I had already received a prophecy from Claudia.

A prophecy of my death.

Most likely on the very day of your supposed wedding.

And knowing that I would probably die soon did not make any of this easier. If anything, it made everything worse. I did not want to let myself sink too deeply into anything, not into feelings, not into promises, not into a relationship I might leave behind almost immediately, because all it would do was cause you more pain, and everyone else more pain too.

So first, I need to tell you this plainly:

I am sorry.

I am sorry for what I did to you.

For all of it.

I saw what you felt. I understood it, at least deep down, even when I acted as if I did not. But I was afraid, afraid of whether accepting it was the right thing, afraid of where it would lead, afraid of what it would mean. And during the Utopian War, something happened to me that only made those fears worse.

There is something I never told you.

Something I could never find the courage, or perhaps the clarity, to explain.

It is complicated, but the simplest way to say it is this: I am not really Amael.

Or at least, not only Amael.

I carry memories of a past life, a life lived in another world, under another name. And as the days passed, I began to wonder more and more who I truly was. During the Utopian War, my own father rejected my very existence and treated me as though I were nothing more than a parasite wearing someone else’s life.

And perhaps, in some way, he was right.

If that were true, then what would that make my feelings for you?

And what would it make yours?

I think by now you understand what I meant that night in the tent, when I told you that perhaps you only loved the good parts of me. Perhaps what you loved was only what Amael was, and not whatever else I might be beneath that.

I still do not fully understand what I am, even now.

But one thing I came to feel with certainty was that I was not simply Amael.

Amael was the true son of Alea and Kleines.

Amael was your childhood friend.

Amael was the boy you knew in those early years, the one you grew close to before everything became so complicated.

But I am not wholly him, Celeste.

Everything kind or selfless I had done, all the good and noble things people might have seen in me, I convinced myself had probably come from him, from whatever remained of Amael within me. Because the truth, as I saw it, was much uglier. I am not that good a man. I am selfish. I think first of myself, and then of the people closest to me.

You saw that before anyone else truly did.

You saw it on that day when you spoke to me after I chose not to intervene between Alicia and Adrian.

At the time, I did not want to involve myself. It was not my problem, so I had decided to stay out of it.

And yet your words that day, and more than your words, the way you looked at me, made me feel strangely ashamed, even uncomfortable.

Was it because some buried part of Amael stirred within me? Some fragment of his conscience, his kindness, his old altruism?

Perhaps.

He had been that kind of child, after all. Kind, generous, always wanting to help.

But I think there was more to it than that.

The truth is, I did not like you looking at me that way.

Judging me.

Seeing through me.

Because you were unlike me.

You were kind and selfless. You had suffered loss just as I had, and yet where I had retreated inward and become colder, you had remained warm. You still cared for others. You still reached for people. You still tried to be light for those around you, even while carrying your own pain.

That was what I liked about you from the very beginning.

You were straightforward, kind, joyful, helpful.

You were full of life, full of light, so much light that at times it felt blinding to me. It overwhelmed me. It drowned me in something I had forgotten how to bear.

But I did not dislike it.

Quite the opposite.

I felt good by your side.

Better than I had any right to feel.

When I was with you, I felt as though I might become a better man. Or at least would remain one. As though, whatever else I was, whatever I had been, whatever I might become, I could still stay on the right path if I stayed near you.

You saved me that day in Zestel.

You pulled me back from the darkness I was drowning in.

And I think that was probably the moment I truly understood what I felt for you, though it still took me time to accept it. Because once I understood it, another question immediately followed:

Was I worthy of someone like you?

Of someone so good, so bright, so clearly walking a path far lighter than my own?

And worse than that, were my feelings for you even truly real?

Or had they been influenced from the beginning by what I already knew of you, by knowledge I possessed that perhaps I should never have had?

That question haunted me more than you know.

But now, as of today, I can answer you honestly.

What I feel for you is real.

There is no influence from Amael in that. No borrowed feeling, no false affection shaped by what he might have felt, by what he might have done, or by what I happened to know about you from the beginning.

What I feel is mine.

Entirely mine.

You may be confused by what I mean when I say that I know things about you, and I did think many times about telling you everything. But in the end, perhaps none of it matters as much as I once believed it did.

Because you are Celeste.

And whatever happens to you from now on, whatever the future may try to make of you, you will still be Celeste.

At least, I hope so.

I hope you do not disappear beneath titles, prophecies, duties, or whatever role this world may force upon you. I hope you do not change so completely that nothing remains of the woman I loved. Because the woman I fell in love with was not some distant sacred figure. It was you.

And yes, perhaps that is selfish of me.

But as expected, the selfish part of me could never accept seeing you marry someone like Cyril.

If, by some miracle, I had survived all this, then I think I would have been glad to take you away with me, if you still loved me after everything, after how cold and cruel I had been toward you.

And knowing you... you probably would have forgiven me.

You probably would have accepted me anyway.

Then what would we have done?

Would we have run away together?

By now, Sancta Vedelia probably hates my guts enough already.

Maybe you would have agreed to follow me. But I know you too well. I know you would have been sad to leave this place behind, Sancta Vedelia, the land where you grew up, the land where your mother raised you, the land that shaped you into who you are.

And running away like a coward was never truly your style, was it?

So perhaps instead, you would have chosen to face them all.

Your fam