Lola in the PR control room…

  The feeds shifted in quick succession; one after another, the chaos narrowed to a single stream in the port-side barrack battle.

  Brian.

  The traitor moved through the ranks, recalling the empire players to him.

  On-screen, Lucas hesitated; Lisa barked something at him; Rimebreak banners rose like desperate flares in the wind. But the tide was wrong; the Empire troops weren’t pressing; they were retreating. Retreating under Brian’s command.

  And the demons were filling the vacuum.

  “Chief!” one analyst shouted. “Brian’s retreating toward the CEO position. They’re going to overwhelm him!” The room snapped alive again, voices overlapping, panic scraping through professionalism. Lines of light flickered across the holos as feeds rearranged; multiple perspectives converging on the southern district.

  Lola pressed the small holo-tablet against her chest again, the warmth barely reaching through her tightening ribs. Her thumb brushed the edge of the interface, a quiet, unconscious comfort.

  “Who can reinforce them?” she demanded.

  No one answered.

  The room filled with frantic typing, overlapping pings from comms channels, error tones. She scanned the faces, analysts, coordinators, PR specialists, but everyone suddenly found their screens very, very interesting.

  Her voice sharpened. “Who. Can. Reinforce. The South?”

  Silence.

  It was Olivia who finally spoke, her tone dry. “Nobody. Everyone’s tied up. Every division, even the new slave one. Brian gave us Portside barracks…” She adjusted her glasses, jaw tightening. “So he could take out the South.”

  Lola’s eyes fluttered shut for a second, breath steadying;a tiny, practiced pause before she spoke again. “Can we get our people out in time? Lumi? CEO?”

  Before anyone could answer, Hugo slammed his palm against his console. “Lunaris abandoned her post!” Several heads jerked toward him.

  “She what?” Lola asked, voice low.

  “She gave the command to Yuki,” Hugo said, reading off a report, “and left for the South barrack.”

  For a moment, Lola could only stare. The surrounding noise faded, replaced by the slow thrum of blood in her ears. “…what?”

  Hugo just shook his head, eyes scanning through messages. “We don’t know why.”

  Olivia’s voice came next, quieter, but grim. “Also… Queen is engaging the Grandmasters. Llama and Katherine are preventing the others from joining the fight; they’ve engaged Don’s army.”

  All twenty screens dimmed to highlight a single feed. The one brave Riker’s player making Queen’s feed.

  Charlie.

  She stood at the heart of the battlefield, frost and ruin swirling around her like a living storm. Her clothes torn, eyes blazing. Every movement she made carried the weight of command and desperation both; each swing painted the battlefield in arcs of brilliance and violence.

  Each frost construct brought brilliance.

  Lola’s throat tightened. She’d seen Charlie fight before, back when everything still felt like a game; when the stakes were numbers and loot, not lives. But now… now there was something different in every gesture, every burst of mana.

  Lola could fight. She had the class and skills to stand shoulder to shoulder with amazing players like Yuki or Katherine. But what she lacked was confidence. Lola’s fingers curled tighter around the holo-tablet until she could feel its hum pulse against her palm like a heartbeat.

  If she could just get back in, if she could help… She had a marvel class. Not legendary, sure. But she knew what that meant now. After watching the streams.

  The Marvel class changed battles.

  They tilted the scales.

  That was enough.

  She clenched her fist, resolve locking into place. Then she twisted, facing her team. “Olivia,” she said, voice steady. “You’re my deputy.”

  Olivia’s expression didn’t even flicker; except for the tiniest upward curl at the corner of her lips. She adjusted her glasses with deliberate precision, the glint in her eyes unmistakably pleased. “Of course, Chief.”

  “Hugo,” Lola continued, “second her.”

  He let out a theatrical sigh, but the grin he hid behind his hand betrayed him. “Yes, Chief.”

  Lola nodded once, the decision sealed. “Keep the feeds alive. No silence, no gaps. And… no maximizing profits at players’ image expense, got it? Not half-naked Luna situation again.” Then she turned on her heel, pace quickening toward the VR capsule bay.

  Her holo still glowed against her chest, light flickering across her blazer like a heartbeat that refused to quit. The command room watched as the doors closed behind her; their Chief disappearing into the capsule that would carry her back into Rimelion.

  —

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Back at the main square, Charlie is being Charlie…

  I turned back toward Shad and the Red Grandmaster, letting the chaos thunder around us for one quiet heartbeat. “My prince and I got the grandmasters,” I said, forcing a confident smile I wasn’t sure I still owned. “Help my people take the city.”

  Red blinked, startled. Maybe he’d expected orders whispered in riddles, not tossed like grenades. But Shad just looked at me with that strange, quiet pride, the expression that made it seem like he’d seen this outcome long before I had. Like his gamble on me, on this, was already paying off.

  “We understand,” he said simply.

  Both turned and strode away, cloaks snapping in the demon wind.

  Across the square, I saw Katherine and Llama holding a standoff with the Empire’s turncoats; the two sides frozen in a silent, murderous tableau. Guards and players facing our elites.

  The catgirl assassin had already dragged Don to their line, blades out, posture relaxed but deadly. Apparently, we were letting her.

  Tzaltheron straightened, the air groaning around his frame. The gravity fields collapsed in glittering fragments, scattering like powdered stars before fading into nothing. His four eyes burned in the dimness; twin pairs of sickly green suns, each one reflecting something ancient and gleeful.

  When he exhaled, it wasn’t breath but smoke… hot and stinking of molten iron.

  “Do you think we’ll just let you?” The White Grandmaster’s voice cracked across the square like my old whip. He staggered upright, one hand raised; trembling, but still alight with power. Wind coiled around his arm like a serpent refusing to die, hissing with each breath he drew.

  He looked at me, but his words were meant for the prince. “You are an abomination,” he said coldly, the wind thickening into slicing ribbons that shimmered. “A wound torn in the world. Return to the pit that spawned you…”

  Eeeh… hopefully meant for the prince?

  The air glowed silver, runes flaring in a cyclone of razor wind. “…or I will carve the name of your shame into the skies above Altandai.”

  The gale roared, shredding the smoke and the silence alike.

  Purple’s face was slick with sweat, his composure cracking in fine lines. The runes orbiting his wrists pulsed faster, warping the air. When he spoke, it wasn’t loud, but it carried. “Don’t speak to it,” he hissed. “Just crush it. The moment you name something that old, it notices.”

  His magic deepened, gravity humming low; the vibration you felt in your ribs, not your ears. The surrounding cobblestones sank, dust trembling upward as if caught between falling and flying.

  Yellow tried to laugh, and it came out brittle, scraping along the edge of hysteria. “Perhaps we could… negotiate,” he said, his hands flaring gold. His light spilled across his trembling fingers, rich and false as a coin freshly minted. “Demons love bargains, don’t they? Pain for protection, torment for truce?” His grin split wider. “Everyone wants something.”

  The Black Grandmaster didn’t answer. He just drew.

  The sound wasn’t metal; it was the sigh of something pulled from the void itself. His blade wasn’t forged; it condensed, smoke becoming form, darkness sharpening into an edge that hissed with every breath.

  He stepped forward, his voice low and deliberate, like a prayer spoken to something already listening. “Demons are pain incarnate.” The sword tilted, drinking the light. “Perhaps it’s time pain learned what happens when it bleeds.”

  Tzaltheron’s laugh was soft; almost human. The light spilling from his cracks deepened to crimson. “You speak of power,” he hissed. “Yet your fear gives you away. Even your spells quake to escape you.”

  He advanced. The air tore around him. “Masters of magic?” he echoed. “No. You cultivate scraps. You kneel to what you cannot control.” Chains dragged, metal whispering like knives. “You have named yourselves rulers,” the demon prince said, voice low. “Now, let me remind you what rules you.”

  “Tzaltheron,” I said, steadying my breath. “We use the Ul’vath Noerim.”

  His head twisted; four eyes locked onto me. The air itself seemed to flinch under that gaze. For a moment, everything went silent: the wind, the crackling runes, even the screams in the distance. Just him and me, caught in the moment between command and carnage.

  For a terrifying second, I thought he might laugh.

  Instead, his neck tilted, joints creaking like old gates, the cracks across his obsidian skin glowing redder. “You know that art?” His voice was lower now, not mockery… something closer to reverence. Dangerous, reluctant respect.

  The memory flashed; fifteen years ago, in the future, demon realm debugging.

  I’d learned the technique then, watching demon kings and their champions tear through enemy strongholds like divine storms. Ul’vath Noerim… if I remembered correctly, it was ‘To bare one’s claws beneath another’s shadow’. The champion goes full offense, no defense, no restraint, trusting the liege to shield, to mend, to keep them alive.

  “With me supporting you,” I said, forcing a grin, “we’ll wipe the floor with ‘em.”

  He watched me, unreadable. The world seemed to shrink to that stare; judgment made of flame and stone. Then, slow as continental drift, he bowed his head.

  “Very well,” he rumbled. “Then I am yours, Queen.”

  And then he moved.

  The sound wasn’t a roar at first; it was a detonation. The cobbles beneath him cracked like ice, fissures racing outward as the air buckled around his charge. His laughter followed a moment later, deep. Not pain, not rage.

  Joy.

  He hurled himself at the Grandmasters.

  The wind of his advance tore banners from the walls. His chains whipped through the air, their hooks burning red-hot, trailing sparks that screamed against the stone.

  The Grandmasters responded instantly; years of mastery snapping into reflex.

  I ran.

  No, I flew. My beautiful heels barely touched the cobbles; they cracked underfoot in little puffs of frost as I crossed the square. The world stretched thin around me, sound smearing into a single low hum. I blinked, and suddenly I was five meters closer.

  My brain caught up a moment later, and I flicked my stats open mid-stride.

  [Name: Princess Charlie]

  [Race: Steppe Elven]

  [Gender: Female]

  [Level: 5 (35)]

  [Life path: Sovereign Ruler 7–Legendary]

  [Class: Sovereign of Strife 6-marvel]

  [Physical stats: 2-uncommon]

  [Magical stats: 3-rare]

  [2-Uncommon]. Still me. But the class was now [6-marvel].

  The bonus hit like a drug. I could feel everything, the drag of the wind on my cloak, the weight of mana threading my veins, the pulse of my heart syncing to the rhythm of the spell circles overhead. So this was what an effective level thirty-five [6-marvel] NPC felt like.

  Kinda nice.

  Like main-character privileges on steroids.

  I focused, letting the chill flood down my arms. Ice crawled along my palms and bloomed outward, sculpting itself into the familiar shape of a longsword and shield. Standard issue. I wanted to try a Zweih?nder, but no, let’s not test new gear mid-conquest, genius.

  Ahead of me, Tzaltheron towered, a cathedral of obsidian muscle and hatred, and the Black Grandmaster was already moving.

  He cut across the battlefield like a shadow, darkness streaming from his blade until it howled, a sound like torn fabric and dying stars. “Aim for the core!” he barked; calm, professional, the voice of a man who’d killed too many legendary beings to count.

  Then he vanished.

  One blink and he reappeared at Tzaltheron’s flank, sword already mid-swing. The air cracked, reality peeling just to make room for the arc of that strike.

  I didn’t think; just moved. Ice burst from my outstretched hand, forming a wall in his path. The blade hit it, screeched through it, and exploded it into glittering shards… but not cleanly. When the pieces fell, one of Tzaltheron’s chains sparked, a tiny crack through the metal.

  I glimpsed one of Riker’s players crouched in the rubble, streaming.

  Of course he was streaming this; never waste a good conquest. Fine. If Riker wanted a show, I’d give them one. I tossed my hair back, frost and ash scattering like sparks, and stepped into the open light.

  “Prince, let them come,” I said, voice ringing. “Let them burn and bleed and scream our names. We do not yield. Not now. Not ever.”