The seven high-ranking maids of the Pleiades maid squad helped Albedo up from the bottom of the crater.
Blood seeped from her wounds, flowing down her skin and dripping onto the ground.
Her breathing was heavy, her chest heaving violently, but her gaze was still cold.
"Ainz-sama, Albedo is seriously injured."
Yuri Alpha looked up and quickly went to the luxurious carriage pulled by the nine undead unicorns. "It will take some time to heal her with recovery magic."
Before Ainz could speak, Makoto's voice had already drifted over. "After all, that Damage Transfer can only be used three times a day. She's already used them up."
"But to be honest, after tanking a direct hit from my Complete Body Susanoo with just her physical body and not being cut in half, that's already impressive. As expected of Nazarick's strongest defender."
Everyone on the Nazarick side's expressions changed.
They all wanted to ask the same question... how does he know that?
Ainz's jawbone moved slightly. He couldn't help looking at Heiji, whose urethra was being frantically stirred by Neurorist and who could no longer even scream.
He strongly suspected that this group had leaked information to Makoto.
"Don't worry, it wasn't them."
Makoto smiled and shook his head. "It's simply because I set all of this."
'Set.'
Ainz's heart seized.
YGGDRASIL players often used that word.
Setting jobs, setting attributes, setting skills, setting equipment, setting NPCs' backstories, personalities, appearances, behavior patterns.
"Could it be that..."
Before he could finish asking, Makoto continued. "You think I was also an YGGDRASIL player?"
Ainz's expression changed dramatically.
'He knew YGGDRASIL!'
Makoto continued. "Just as you modified Albedo's settings after coming to this world, your existence was set by me. So naturally, I know all your secrets inside and out."
The more Ainz listened, the more alarmed he became.
He finally couldn't hold back any longer. His voice squeezed from his throat, carrying an emotion he hadn't felt in a long time, one belonging to the human 'Suzuki Satoru'.
"What exactly are you saying?"
"Skeleton King."
Yu's voice came from inside the Gun Devil. "In your eyes, your subordinates were all created by you and your so-called companions. What you don't realize is that you yourselves were also created by others."
Kazuma took a book from his pocket and threw it at Ainz.
The cover depicted a skeleton in a black robe.
The author's name in the corner of the cover read three words characters: God of Chicken.
Ainz caught the book.
His skeletal face showed no expression, but his hands were visibly shaking slightly.
"Not a bad pen name, right?"
Makoto asked with a smile. "I thought about it for a long time back then."
Ainz opened the first page. The more he read, the more alarmed he became.
About five minutes later, Ainz suddenly looked up at Makoto. The red pupils in his eye sockets trembled violently.
"What is this—"
"Have you heard of the Kingdom of Melromarc?"
Makoto tilted his head slightly toward Queen Mirellia on his right rear. "Whenever this country faces an enormous crisis, it uses otherworld teleportation magic to summon people from the real world with a strong talent for learning magic to become Brave Heroes, acting as their unpaid labor."
With that, Makoto paused slightly. "And I am one of them."
'Real world?!'
Ainz was stunned again. Before he could react, Makoto spoke again.
"That book... was written by me."
Ainz's book slipped from his hand and fell to the ground.
He understood everything.
He was a character in a book.
Like Albedo, Pandora's Actor, and the others, he was a product created by someone else.
His feelings, his obsessions, his fears, his anger... all had been written down by someone else.
"Ainz-sama?"
Pandora's Actor's voice came from beside him, carrying a hint of caution.
But Ainz didn't answer. He was still frozen in place.
Pandora bent down and picked up the book.
His bowling ball face showed no expression, but as he continued reading, his fingers also trembled noticeably.
Now Pandora's Actor finally understood why, when he had gone to Axel to deliver the declaration of war last time, Yu had said what he said.
So in a sense, Makoto really was his grandfather.
Pandora's Actor was silent for a moment, then handed the book to Demiurge beside him.
Soon, the book had been passed around among the Floor Guardians. Every face it passed over showed the same expression... bewilderment.
They didn't mind being products created by someone else. That was how they had been born.
But the problem was, the man standing before them now was not only the enemy leader but also the creator of their creators.
Pandora's Actor asked himself—
My grandfather and my father are fighting. Which side should I help? Asking online, urgent.
The silence lasted for five minutes.
The soldiers on the battlefield, who had still been fighting, gradually stopped.
They looked in confusion toward their own leader's direction, wondering if this war was still on or not.
"In the ending of your story, do I reunite with my companions?"
Finally, Ainz spoke again, his voice hoarse.
At the end of the day, what he cared about most were those companions who had built Nazarick with him.
He wanted to know if the story's ending had given them a satisfactory resolution.
Makoto spread his hands slightly and said with some helplessness, "I don't know. I stopped writing that book."
"You dropped the story, you bastard!"
Hana muttered in her heart.
She often read light novels too. What she feared most was following a story only to have it suddenly discontinued.
Many Authors didn't write very well but had all kinds of strange reasons for stopping.
She never expected her own man to be one of them.
Even less did she expect that one day she would witness an Author getting beaten up by the characters he created.
Ainz fell silent again.
A few seconds later, he exploded with even stronger anger than before.
"You are desecrating this! Desecrating the bond between me and my companions!!!"
In his rage, Ainz reached out, his skeletal finger pointing at Makoto. Blue-white lightning condensed at his fingertip.
In mid-flight, it twisted into a roaring dragon. Its head reared high, its mouth wide open, lunging at Makoto.
Fifth-Tier Magic... Dragon Lightning!
Makoto raised his hand. A Susanoo shield unfolded from his palm. A deep blue energy wall blocked the Dragon Lightning.
Makoto's expression was somewhat subtle.
'So this was the retribution for being a story-dropping bastard?'
Usually, when an author drops a story, the worst they get is hate mail from readers.
He was now being settled by the characters he created. That was a first.
Ainz didn't give Makoto a chance to catch his breath.
The moment Dragon Lightning was blocked, his next spell had already finished chanting.
"Tenth-Tier Magic... Divine Lightning!"
Countless enormous lightning pillars fell from the sky, their tips all aimed at Makoto.
The lightning pillars slammed into the ground, blasting one crater after another. Rock fragments and dirt were blown into the sky.
Kurama dodged between the lightning pillars. Its orange-red fur was bleached white by the lightning light. Its nine tails lashed wildly behind it.
Makoto patted Kurama's head, signaling it to fall back.
He jumped off Kurama's head himself, landing in the center of the battlefield. His Rinnegan suddenly activated.
Purple light surged from his eyes. The moment he formed hand seals, several enormous meteors suddenly fell from above the clouds.
Each one was comparable to the Tengai Shinsei of the Konoha Dance King.
"Tengai Hoshin—!"
The meteors and the lightning pillars collided in the sky.
The light at the point of collision was brighter than the sun. Tens of millions of soldiers covered their eyes simultaneously.
The meteors shattered into countless pieces. The lightning pillars exploded into countless bolts. They turned into a meteor shower and a lightning storm pouring down on the battlefield.
The earth trembled. The sky burned. The air wailed.
The Crimson Demon Clan below, even though they were all great mages, watched this dumbfounded.
'What kind of battle was this?!'
While shocked, the Crimson Demon Clan felt even more excited.
Their clan loved this kind of cool magic!
Arue couldn't help sighing, "A good man like this is wasted on Yunyun."
As she spoke, she thrust out that pair of huge breasts that could rival Tsunade's.
Megumin couldn't help cursing, "Shut up, you slutty woman!"
Back in school, these guys had often borrowed money from Yunyun because she couldn't say no. She herself had been the one to make them pay it back.
'Back then, they were after her money. Now that they'd left school, they were trying to steal her man?'