Reincarnated as the Villainess’s Unlucky Bodyguard

The first light of dawn never came.

Above the world, the sky had turned violet-black, choked with clouds heavy with unnatural stormlight. No sun dared pierce the veil that Azael Veyrith had summoned. No birds dared sing. The very air hung tense and unmoving, as if the world itself held its breath.

And far below the blackened heavens, the gates of the obsidian fortress groaned open.

Azael stood atop the grand platform carved into the mountainside, her crimson robes trailing behind her like liquid fire, her golden eyes gleaming with war-born focus. Behind her, the great banners of her empire unfurled black cloth embroidered with the sigil of the Sovereign: a serpent of shadows coiled around a bleeding crown.

Stretching out before her, as far as the eye could see, were her armies.

Rows upon rows of disciplined soldiers, each forged from the abyss. Twisted demons, voidspawn creatures, and dark knights stood shoulder to shoulder, adorned in jagged armor pulsing faintly with cursed runes. War drums pounded in slow unison, each beat a promise of conquest. Shadows crept between the ranks like living creatures, whispering to one another, eager for the bloodshed to come.

But none of it compared to what stood at the army's heart.

Liria.

Clad in blackened armor that shimmered faintly with violet hues, she stood still among the sea of soldiers—statuesque, silent, utterly still. The helm at her side bore no crest, only a single etched rune: a perfect circle crossed by a line—symbol of abyssal balance and destruction.

Her mismatched eyes stared straight ahead, blank and obedient, her silver-and-black hair braided tightly down her back. Her breathing was slow, controlled, emotionless.

The girl Daena had raised, the friend Enara had loved—she was gone.

Only the weapon remained.

Azael stepped forward, and her voice—clear, powerful, and absolute—rang across the mountainside.

"Today, the world will remember who we are."

The soldiers pounded their fists against their chests in response. The sound rippled outward like thunder, rolling across the barren stone like the heartbeat of a beast too large to be seen.

"Too long we have been hunted, scattered, driven into the shadows," Azael continued, her tone steady, reverberating with ancient fury. "No more. From this day forth, the world will kneel."

She raised one hand, and violet fire spiraled into the sky. The clouds churned in response, lightning splitting the sky as if the world itself recoiled.

"And at the center of our vengeance," Azael said, turning slightly, "stands the one who will bring the kingdoms to their knees."

Liria stepped forward as if pulled by an unseen string. The crowd fell into awed silence.

Azael looked upon her weapon with a mix of satisfaction and something unreadable—something she would not name. "Liria. My blade. My abyss. Step into the light."

Liria obeyed without hesitation, walking to the front of the assembled army. As she did, the shadows pulled away from her path like servants bowing to a queen. Her armor pulsed gently with the breath of dark magic, and behind her, wings of void unfurled—wings not of feather or flame, but of pure silence and space, as if the stars themselves had been stripped and reforged for war.

Gasps echoed from the ranks. Even the fiercest of demons could not suppress the chill that ran through them.

"She will break their walls," Azael declared. "Shatter their hope. Erase their names from the memory of time."

Liria stood motionless, eyes still blank. Yet within her chest, something stirred—a beat too slow to be a memory, too faint to be rebellion, but not gone.

Buried.

Muted.

Waiting.

The system said nothing.

It hadn't spoken since the mindwipe.

Azael descended the platform and approached Liria, her crimson-gloved hand reaching up to adjust a clasp on the girl's armor.

"You will not hesitate," she said softly, voice for Liria alone. "You will not feel. You will not remember."

Liria nodded. "I exist to obey."

"And obey you shall," Azael whispered, but her voice had tightened.

For a flicker of a second—so brief it could've been imagined—Liria's mismatched eyes seemed to flash with something like recognition.

But it vanished as quickly as it came.

Azael turned back toward her army, face once more composed, expression unreadable.

"Mobilize," she commanded.

Like clockwork, the ranks shifted. Generals barked orders. Squadrons moved into position. Great siege beasts were unchained—colossal hulks of twisted stone and flesh, each one bound with dozens of enchanted chains. Warlocks raised their staffs, opening teleportation gates that shimmered with impossible colors.

The army began to move.

A tide of darkness flowing across the land.

Azael mounted her dreadsteed—a beast forged from the bones of an ancient dragon, its form bound together by arcane fire and command. Its hooves clattered against stone, eyes glowing like suns at midnight.

Behind her, Liria followed without a word, mounted on a spectral steed conjured from shadow, its form semi-solid, silent, and fast as the void. Her presence sent a wave of silence through the air, as though the world itself recoiled from her passage.

They rode at the front.

Azael, the Sovereign.

And Liria, her harbinger.

As they approached the edge of the valley, the world seemed to pause.

Azael looked ahead at the horizon, where distant peaks marked the borderlands of Daena's domain.

The demon queen would resist.

So would the Celestials. And the humans.

But resistance was meaningless.

They had hope.

Azael had Liria.

"Sound the call," she said quietly.

And with that, the skies split open with a roar.

A cry of war echoed through every realm. In the human cities, towers trembled. In the Celestial palaces, the sky darkened. In Daena's citadel, the winds carried the unmistakable taste of dread.

The war had begun.

The armies of the Sovereign moved like a stormfront, unstoppable, silent, leaving only ruin in their wake.

And at the center of it all, Liria rode forward.

Eyes empty.

Heart silent.

Memories gone. Far beneath the magic, beneath the bindings and spells, a single spark stirred. A dream.

A hand reaching out.

A voice calling her name.

But the drums drowned it out.

And the march continued.

The war march continued, relentless as thunder, silent as falling ash.

From the front of the endless host, Azael watched the horizon with narrowed eyes. The sky itself bowed before her, roiling with stormclouds that she had summoned, black as ink, stitched with jagged streaks of violet lightning. Beneath them, the land trembled—forests falling silent, rivers stilled, the very wind refusing to blow in her direction, as if nature itself knew what approached.

Behind her, the sound of her army was a steady tide: armor clinking, beast growls rumbling low, war drums booming in sync with the beating hearts of thousands ready to unleash chaos. Yet no one cheered. No one shouted. Her army did not need to.

They were beyond morale, beyond inspiration.

They were tools.

Sharpened, refined, and now unleashed.

At the center of this dread machine, Liria rode without expression, her gaze fixed forward. Shadows pooled around her mount's hooves like ink dropped into water. Her hair, silver and black, moved not with the wind but with an unnatural grace, as though obeying something deeper than the laws of the world.

She looked like a goddess of silence, an avatar of oblivion.

To Azael, she was perfect.

But not even Azael could see the faint flicker hiding beneath that mask.

Somewhere deep in the tangled depths of Liria's fractured mind, a fragment of something remained—something small, something fragile. Not a memory. Not yet. But a feeling. A whisper.

An ache.

An impression of warmth she could not name. The echo of a voice she did not remember. A color. A scent. A touch.

It was buried deep beneath the false obedience, under the cracked floorboards of her erased thoughts. But it pulsed there. Slowly. Quietly.

Waiting.

At the head of the column, Azael raised her hand. The army halted instantly, an impossible feat for so many but discipline was the Sovereign's first commandment.

She turned in the saddle and swept her gaze across the ranks. Towering beasts stilled. Mages quieted their chants. Even the air stopped shifting.

Her voice rang out like a bell of cold steel.

"We begin with the demon lands," she said. "Daena made her choice when she stood against me."

The soldiers stirred slightly enough to acknowledge, but not enough to question.

"She still believes that light can protect her. That love can redeem." Azael sneered. "She will learn what remains when both are burned away."

She pointed forward with a gloved hand.

"You are my storm. My blade. You will leave nothing behind."

A cheer rose low, inhuman, rippling across monsters and soldiers alike.

Azael turned toward Liria and studied her once more. "Are you prepared?"

Liria bowed her head. "I exist to serve."

"Then go," Azael commanded, her tone silk and stone. "Burn the first gate."

Liria rode ahead, toward the edge of the valley, where the jagged cliffs marked the beginning of Daena's territory. Ancient runes shimmered faintly in the air—a boundary of protection, the first line of defense.

Liria lifted her hand.

Darkness obeyed.