The Shadow Queen Is Too Alluring—I Can't Handle This Anymore! 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 dimd.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.Co ho. Let taste you."

Lyra hugged herself.She was made of love—mory—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 aning, 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 erged—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 mory 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 ant 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 ."

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 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...