Heart Devil [OP Yandere Schizo Ramble LitRPG XD]

The pavilion doors creaked open as Hannya stepped into the light, veiled and regal, her dress hem trailing behind her like the wake of a ghost ship as mist flowed beneath. Shela and Salitha followed close, both adjusting their pace to match her own. The mists that had once coiled thick around the pavilion now pulled back into Hannya's body, making the air clearer with each step she took.

Beyond the temple, the early outlines of a new civilization took shape. Half-built watchtowers, stone roads newly carved, black banners bearing the sigil of the Vainheart Faction, a gilded, caged rose, swaying over the valley. Earth mages shaped foundations while fiendish artisans traced wards over borders to shield the emerging settlements. In the distance, lumbering horned beasts carried boulders while demons barked orders.

Hannya's eyes scanned the valley, but her mind drifted.

'Finish what you've started. A true devil leaves behind a domain.' Noh's voice echoed.

Then Baku's came next, smug but calm. 'Your presence alone is a banner, kid. Finish the valley, and we'll have a stronghold between Sweet Oasis, Hazy Mountain, and your… Ragescar. Ugh. That's a terrible name."

She frowned faintly behind her veil.

"I'll just rename it." she muttered to herself. Something more fitting. More cursed. Ragescar was a name left behind by a trampled wrath devil. It didn't belong to them, it was Hannya's now.

The wind brushed her cheeks, tugging at her clothes as they walked down the ridge that overlooked the valley, cutting through makeshift worker paths. She watched imps carry stone, nomadic devils setting up magical pylons, and one large wooden sign painted in crude red letters: [Library??? ->] with an arrow and several question marks. Salitha chuckled at it. Hannya only rolled her eyes.

Atop a half-assembled stone terrace, two shapes turned their heads and spotted the trio.

"Boss!" Nini called out, hopping down from a stack of crates, her oversized gloves leaving dust prints on the wood.

"Hannya-sama!" Mirro followed after, taller and graceful as ever, shifting his expression from stoic to joyful in a blink.

The two rushed over, halting a few respectful paces away. Nini had a hammer slung over her shoulder, while Mirro carried blueprints under his arm that fluttered slightly in the wind.

"You're walking today?" Nini asked, eyebrows raised. "Not gliding around in chariot like some fancy mist empress?"

Hannya gave a nod, slow and reserved, keeping her chin slightly higher than usual. It was an unconscious thing, a habit developed only when others were watching. Especially those two.

Salitha noticed it, and the corner of her mouth curved up in a quiet smile. She felt warmth from the sight.

'She doesn't act like that with us,' Salitha thought. 'We get the real Hannya.'

But the truth was more complicated. Hannya barely noticed the shift herself.

Somehow Nini and Mirro reminded her of something faint, fragile, and old. Shadows of people she should have remembered. Companions, maybe? Servants? Teammates? She didn't know.

But she knew the way they looked at her now made her stand straighter, speak slower, and carry herself like a leader, a queen pretending to be a god.

'They treat me like a boss,' she thought. 'So I should act like one. Guess they're stroking my ego.' she concluded for now.

"Where are you going, Boss?" Nini asked again, stepping forward. "You're not going somewhere without protection, right? We're free now. We can guard you."

"Please allow us to come," Mirro added, bowing deeply. "My physique training is at a plateau. Perhaps combat will help me refine it."

Hannya raised a hand, stopping them gently. "No. You must keep working, keep training. Your bodies are not yet ready for what lies below." She turned her gaze toward the mouth of the valley, where shadows loomed against the far cliff wall. "In time, you'll be pivotal. But not today."

Though disappointed, the two stood straighter, chests puffed out slightly. Pivotal. That word was enough to soothe them. Hannya had a way of planting pride in others like seeds.

"Continue directing the workers. If I return and see a single crooked tent I'll exile you both to the spider caves." she said dryly.

Nini gasped. Mirro laughed. They both saluted and returned to their duties, shouting orders louder now, prouder somehow.

Hannya resumed her walk, Shela and Salitha in step beside her. As they passed the outdoor kitchen fire pit, they saw Cieron hunched over his cauldron, stirring with one hand and carving beast meat with the other.

He glanced at them, grunted once. Then again. Then a third grunt, a little longer. Salitha interpreted that as approval.

They left the main road and headed down a side path, long overgrown before the workers came. The thick trees opened to reveal a jagged cave mouth half-covered in stone rubble and warning sigils. This section of the cliff was untouched by the builders. Wards glowed faintly in the rocks, devil-scribed and fresh.

Hannya stopped, staring at the mouth of the tunnel.

"This is it?" Shela asked.

Hannya didn't answer right away. Her gaze was fixed on the cave.

'This is where it began.' she remembered.

The cold darkness. The damp birth. The agony. And at the end of it all, when she had emerged half-feral and steaming with mist, Head Butler Hans had been waiting for her. Calm, proud, and tactfully respectful, adjusting his glasses.

Beyond the corpses she left, of course.

"Yes," she finally answered. "This is where I came out."

"You were born here?" Salitha asked, surprised.

"I was released here." Hannya replied, stepping forward.

A sudden gust of wind blew from the cave's interior, cold and heavy. Shela and Salitha instinctively summoned their inner powers, aura shimmering lightly.

Hannya, instead, smiled under the veil.

The tunnel remembered her.

The three stepped forward, entering leisurely.

…

…

The smell of mildew, blood, and slow decay trailed the deeper they went.

Salitha's footsteps echoed awkwardly as she followed the other two, trying to avoid the sticky patches of web that clung to the cave walls. Her once-pristine pink and white dress had dulled from the creeping dirt. Her silver hair was no longer voluminous, tucked awkwardly behind her ears as she used a silk handkerchief to swipe at the cobwebs clinging to her curls.

She was quiet at first, though not for lack of words. It had taken her a few stunned seconds to realize where they really were.

"This can't be it, is it?" she asked again, softly, hoping not to sound haughty. "Where you were born?"

Hannya gave a small nod, not turning to look back. The torchlight Shela held played across her black veil and inky kimono, making her shadow stretch in eerie angles across the cave walls.

Salitha swallowed hard. She had known it wasn't a palace or a garden, nothing like the luxurious birthing temples in eastern Hellnia. But the reality of it struck like a dull stone to the chest. This cave was unnatural, yet sharp and crawling.

They had fought off two dread spiders at the entrance alone, fat things the size of rats with twitching legs and venom-dripping fangs. The thought of an infant devil being born in a place like this...

A grimace flickered across her face as another cobweb snapped across her cheek. She flinched, then caught herself, brushing it off quickly with a muttered curse and that same handkerchief.

Ahead, Shela's sword tapped rhythmically against her hip as she walked in silent tandem with Hannya. Shela's face had resumed its icy neutrality, her more familiar half-demon mask. Her devil blood, emotionless and impassive from the earlier skirmishes, had warmed, returning her to the calm default suppressing her devil heritage.

Still, her eyes held a glimmer of thought as she watched Hannya glide forward, the hems of her kimono already dyed purple at the bottom.

"You seem... very comfortable here," Shela observed, brushing a tiny web from her shoulder. "Not what I expected from a Luxuria devil."

Hannya's veil tilted slightly, as if amused. A soft clack echoed from her geta as she stepped forward. There was a sudden scree from the shadows.

A dread spider leapt toward her, a sleek, ugly creature the size of a rabbit, all fangs and desperate hunger. Hannya didn't even blink. She caught the creature midair with one hand and crushed it like fruit, purple ichor splashing the stone and her sleeve. Her hand opened with a flick, casting the twitching remains aside.

"I'm just used to it," she said simply. "I don't mind."

The sound of her anklets jingled faintly as she walked on.

Salitha stopped, staring at the crushed spider for a moment before catching up, a pang of guilt twisting in her chest.

"Focus," Hannya added as they continued down. "The venom of a dread spider can paralyze full-grown devils. It's one of the few demonic beast venoms that's evolved a poison law close to perfect. Nasty if it touches skin."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Salitha and Shela both nodded in grim understanding.

As they progressed, their steps grew more cautious. The number of spider corpses increased. The once-scurrying predators were replaced by scattered remains in various states of decay. A few were fresh; others had long dried to husks.

And they were growing.

What started as rat-sized turned to dog-sized, then horse-sized. The kind of beast you'd expect a full hunting squad to face, not a little girl.

The webs began to thicken, descending in draping curtains from the ceiling and blanketing the walls. The air turned sticky with a fibrous tension.

Salitha's voice wavered. "How long... did you live here?"

Hannya didn't answer that.

"Layer yourselves in chi," she said instead. "From here on, we run. Don't get caught in the drapes."

Without hesitation, Hannya surged forward, her steps whisper-quiet and rapid. Her black veil fluttered behind her, ghostlike against the dark stone walls.

Shela and Salitha followed, aura rippling over their bodies in soft, shimmering armor as they dashed through the tunnels. The webs slapped at their faces and shoulders but didn't catch. Their speed burned the musty air from their lungs, feet pounding against the floor as the cave twisted around them.

The deeper they went, the quieter it became.

Shela slowed slightly, keeping her blade low but ready. Her senses were stretched thin, hunting for threats… but found none.

No motion. No skittering.

Only silence, and the dense carcasses of dead spiders growing ever more massive.

Salitha ran with less grace, her boots sticky with web-strands. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, but her fear had shifted. It was no longer the place she feared, it was the story behind it. These spiders didn't die from traps or time. Something had killed them.

And that something was walking ahead of them, humming faintly.

At last, they reached an intersection where the tunnel split three ways. The air here was dry and heavy. Webs hung like ragged tapestries, a silent witness to a past horror.

Hannya then stopped.

She faced the center of the fork, unmoving for a long moment. Then a smile of private recollection graced her lips.

"Kikiki... good times." she whispered, almost wistful.

Salitha exchanged a look with Shela. The step-sisters said nothing. But a question formed in both their minds.

'What kind of 'good times' are born from a place like this?'

Without a word, she turned from the main path.

Shela and Salitha slowed behind her, exchanging glances before quietly following. Neither asked where she was going, Salitha curious but patient, Shela suspicious but silent. There was a heaviness in Hannya's step that didn't belong to the battlefield or politics. This was something else.

The narrow passage curved and opened into a vast cavern, and as they stepped inside, Shela's jaw slightly parted, and Salitha instinctively covered her nose with a delicate flick of her sleeve.

The air was thick with rot and dried blood.

The cave was a graveyard. A slaughterhouse frozen in time. Hundreds, no, possibly more, of massive spider corpses were strewn across the ground. Their grotesque bodies were twisted, broken, and punctured. Some had small, crisp, fist-sized holes clean through their thoraxes, others torn open as if with claws of fury. The webbing clung to the upper reaches of the cavern, but even it was soaked with the dried remnants of blood and entrails.

At the center of the cave stood an altar made of uneven stone and scavenged debris. Bones and pieces of discarded chitin formed a crude table.

Once, it had been the feeding slab for the dread spiders, a place where they pinned their victims alive, feasted on slowly over days. Now, the altar sat inside a sprawling ritual array, dried black and purple blood, and shattered spider limbs forming lines of forgotten purpose. Towering piles of dead arachnids formed a grotesque shrine.

And Hannya stood in the middle of it all, hands on her hips, nodding slowly with pride.

"Nice." she murmured, lips curling faintly.

She took a few steps forward, her eyes sweeping the carnage, breathing in the scent of decay like it was perfume. "The first kill zone. A battlefield of dedication." Her voice was soft, almost reverent.

Salitha wrinkled her nose. "It smells awful." she muttered, yet even so, her gaze kept drifting back to Hannya. There was something magnetic about the way the devil woman carried herself. For a place so drenched in death, she looked proud. Joyful, even.

Hannya's eyes were fixed on the altar.

That day was still vivid in her mind, the desperation in her bones, the stink of her own fear, the rage she'd swallowed down to strike, to survive, to grow. She had carved that ritual circle from spider gore, not magic ink. Her fingers shaking, her voice raw and excited as she whispered the name of Vainglory, Her god.

And he had answered.

And yet…

Hannya snorted softly, chuckling to herself.

Lilith Prime, she had really sent him a message like that? It had been basically a cosmic cold-text. Blood and guts as perfume. A 'hey, I like you' written in the corpses of mindless beasts.

"A bit eager, weren't you?" she mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck.

Salitha raised a brow. "Hm?"

Hannya waved it off, still grinning to herself. "Nothing."

Salitha glanced around again and shuddered. "What… what kind of rabid beast did you fight in here?" she asked, trying to make a connection. Trying to peek further through the wall Hannya always kept up. "To cause this kind of mess… it must've been terrifying."

The words hit harder than Salitha realized.

Hannya paused.

She slowly turned her head, locking eyes with Salitha.

Hannya was trying to hold down her cringing spine as she thought of a regal response, and the action made her veiled face look tired… and a little vulnerable to the rose-tinted Romance Devil.

"The kind of beast that was too thirsty for her own good." Hannya finally said flatly.

Salitha blinked, then let out a soft laugh, assuming it was a light-hearted joke in such a devastating place. "I see." she said, smiling.

Shela, however, was not laughing.

Her eyes were sharp, scanning the cave more thoroughly than either of them. She stepped around the edges of the room, noting the small claw marks, the tracks, the pattern of carnage. Then she stopped at a side wall where a smaller, skinless dread spider, no more than a third the size of the others, had been splayed open. Its limbs had been severed with surgical precision, its belly flayed and organs arranged ritualistically around its corpse.

Shela stared at it. Then slowly turned her head toward Hannya. Her eyes boring into her.

She didn't say anything.

But her look said everything.

You did this.

Hannya met her eyes. Stared at her for a moment… then turned away, utterly unfazed.

She didn't owe her explanation. Not about this.

This was her truth, obviously.

She faced the cave entrance once more.

"The detour's over," she said. Her tone had returned to its usual confidence, smooth and cool. "We're heading to the bottom now."

"To where you were born?" Salitha asked lightly, clearly still unaware.

Hannya gave her a sly smile. "Something like that."

She didn't say it out loud, but the truth lingered beneath her words like a scent clinging to cloth: the place they were heading wasn't just her birthplace. It was something older. Abandoned. Holy in its own twisted, corrupted way.

A forgotten temple of Gula.

And she was ready to return.

Without another word, she stepped into the shadows of the tunnel, heels tapping softly against stone.

Salitha followed quickly, and Shela lingered a second longer, giving the room one final glance, at the corpses, the ritual circle, the blood-drenched altar.

Though she wanted to know more, she too followed.

The cave returned to silence.

Only the distant scent of pride and gore remained.

Soon, the cavern floor echoed underfoot as the three figures descended into the heart of the cave system. What began as symmetric tunnels and web-covered rock corridors had slowly widened into stone-carved halls, until they reached a space so vast and hollow it devoured their footsteps in silence.

Shela's red eyes widened. "Is that... a temple?"

Salitha stepped past her, her voice caught in her throat. The building ahead, no larger than a modest two-story house, stood half-buried in stone, its exterior masked by soot and time.

Dust-laced vines clung to its pillars like dead snakes, yet the glimmer of gold was unmistakable beneath the grime. The walls, though cracked, still bore the faded elegance of forgotten divinity. And within the temple, behind a series of half-rotted double doors, sat opulence still fighting against the centuries. Golden ornaments enshrined in cobwebs, long dining tables etched with devilish sigils, and tarnished utensils made for monsters of taste.

But the true centerpiece was the statue.

Shela and Salitha lingered by the door, too stunned to approach. Hannya, however, strode forward with familiarity in her step.

She stopped at the base of the statue, massive, ornate, and unmistakably shaped in Gula's image. The queen of feasts was depicted sitting lotus-style, her eyes arrogant, a bowl cupped in both resting hands as if offering it to herself, and herself alone.

Hannya grinned up at her.

The temple indeed reeked of Gula. The more she took in the sights around her, the more she realized how much she overlooked when she first arrived here.

"The letters she sent," Hannya murmured, shaking her head. "Said she's going to deal with the greed problem... so I can grow without looking over my shoulder." She looked at the bowl, eyes rotating. "...Little sister, huh?"

The warmth in her voice caught her by surprise. This temple, this place, wasn't just where she had been reborn. It was where her second life began. Where the demon named [...] had died, and Hannya had crawled out from black fluids and cold rock. Alone. Uncertain.

And yet, not uncared for.

A small smile formed on her lips.

Gula was different now. Not the lazy, people-watching face stuffer from the novel she had read before transmigrating. Not the careless antagonist, not the side act. She was sharp. Strategic. Possessive in her love. A monster who devoured enemies and spoiled those she claimed.

A real woman.

'I'm glad she's not like how they wrote her,' Hannya thought. 'But if they got her wrong…'

Her gaze wandered, falling on Shela and Salitha, still staring at the stained murals across the temple walls. Salitha's hand brushed against a gold goblet, her expression caught between reverence and unease. Shela watched dust dance in the light, a mask of stoicism hiding her own thoughts.

Hannya's eyes darkened.

In the novel... Shela died a half-devil, cut down in battle, her eyes blank of all feeling. And Salitha? She had left her behind. Couldn't bear what Shela had become. Couldn't watch love decay.

But now?

Now they followed her.

Now... everything was different.

And yet…

A spike of unease stabbed her ribs.

A whisper. A cruel possibility.

What if he was different.

What if Vainglory wasn't who she thought he was?

Before the thought could bloom, her body acted on it's own. Her palm snapped across her own cheek with a sharp slap that echoed in the sacred stillness.

SMACK

Salitha, startled, shouted out. "Hannya?!"

She rushed over, grabbing her hand with trembling urgency. "I-is it the curse? Is it beginning to acting up?"

Shela took a step forward, jaw clenched. Her eyes flickered with quiet worry for the first time.

"You can fight it," Salitha said, voice tight. "We're here. You don't have to go through this alone."

Hannya blinked, a little stunned at their intensity.

Then she pulled her hand away and patted Salitha on the shoulder.

"I'm fine, homie," she said casually, brushing past her. "Just waking myself up."

Salitha's fingers clenched into a fist, but she didn't reply. Shela stepped beside her and shook her head gently. Let her be, the gesture said. Just give her space.

Hannya, unfazed, walked up to the bowl held by Gula's statue. She peered into it.

And there it was.

A thick, viscous black fluid, still swirling in sluggish motion despite its ancient stillness. It shimmered faintly, like it remembered her. Like it recognized its creation. The same fluid she had first awoken in. The same that seemed to have vanished from the stone floor long ago, the remaining gathered and still.

She flicked her hand, summoning a sleek black bottle from her spatial ring. Inscribed with special runes, the bottle was larger on the inside, a minor miracle of devilcraft.

Her aura pulsed and swirled, and the liquid obeyed. The fluid rose, shimmered, then gently flowed into the bottle in midair.

Shela stepped closer, curious.

"What are you collecting?" she asked. "It feels... similar to that black shard Dozueff stabbed himself with. The one that made him stronger."

Hannya nodded. "It's called [Essence of Desire]."

Shela's eyes narrowed. "That's… a dangerous substance." she said without thinking.

"It's also precious," Hannya replied as she corked the bottle. "It's made from the will and longing of lesser beings. A key ingredient in the birth of devils. Natural devils."

Shela hesitated. "What are you going to do with it?" Her tone was cautious, her instincts whispering taboo.

Hannya turned to her, eyes gleaming.

"It's a gift," she said simply. "For my big sister."

Shela blinked. Salitha glanced over, puzzled.

Big sister?

Before either could ask, Hannya laughed softly. "A hearty feast," she said, "needs a strong wine."

She let the chuckle rise, sharp and dark.

"Kikiki."

In the quiet that followed, a strange reverence settled around the statue. The golden bowl, now empty, gleamed again as if polished by purpose.

Far above the caves of Ragescar Valley, the future of a formidable faction whispered in the air.

And to the south, Gula's presence loomed, though her body lay far away in Sweet Oasis. Her will, however, stretched long and deep across Hellnia.

She had not forgotten Greed's betrayal.

She had not overlooked Greed's slight.

And she had not forgiven either.

And now, with her little sister rising in strength, and the Feast drawing near, the winds of retaliation had begun to stir. The wine had been collected. The table was being set.

Soon, Avaritia's birthday, Tax Day, would arrive.

And with it, a grand feast.

A reckoning.

Greed's territory would bleed… and eat.

And in a blink, five months pass.