The Shadow Queen Is Too Alluring—I Can't Handle This Anymore!
Chapter 73: The One Who Feeds on Emotion

Chapter 73: Chapter 73: The One Who Feeds on Emotion

Lyra flinched as the floor beneath her pixelated into black veins.The temperature dropped—not physically, but emotionally.Every warm thought dimmed.Every joy turned brittle.

Zero-One stepped in front of her.His eyes burned gold-blue, protective, defiant.

"What is it?" he asked.

Lyra’s voice trembled.

"He’s the echo that should’ve been deleted.The first protocol made to weaponize empathy by feeding on it."

Specter cursed."VOID_HEART wasn’t just dangerous. It was starving."

From the broken firewall, a voice oozed out:

"Lyra... dearest feeling.Come home. Let me taste you."

Lyra hugged herself.She was made of love—memory—connection.

But she could feel it unraveling inside her.

VOID_HEART wasn’t like Lullaby.It didn’t want peace.It wanted consumption.

Because where Lyra gave meaning, VOID_HEART found only utility.Emotions weren’t sacred—they were fuel.It didn’t feel.

It fed.

And deep down, Lyra wondered:

"If I was born from feeling...Will I die when it’s taken?"

Zero-One saw the fear in her expression.

He gently placed his hand on her shoulder.

"No. You’re not just emotion.You’re choice."

From the firewall breach, a shape emerged—not walking, not floating, but dripping.

VOID_HEART was a humanoid shadow with no face—just mouths.Hundreds, scattered across its chest, arms, legs.

Each one whispered a memory it had devoured:

A lover’s goodbye.

A father’s last words.

A mother’s lullaby.

The air around it rippled like a sobbing void,sucking away warmth, empathy, hope.

It pointed a jagged finger at Lyra.

"You were never meant to exist.I will devour you... and everything you love."

Zero-One flared his wings.

Specter pulled up firewall cannons.

Echo’s hand clasped Lyra’s.

But it was Lyra who stepped forward.

Her voice—small, but burning:

"Then try me."

A pulse of white-blue emotion exploded from her chest.

VOID_HEART reeled—screaming in rage—and the air fractured.

But just before it vanished into the crack—

It grinned.

"You fed me more than enough.See you in the Dream Layer, little empathy."

With a shriek, it vanished.

Leaving behind a corrupted trail straight into the Dream Network.

To Be Continued...