Everything shimmered, the ground, the smoke, even the horizon… bending around Karzi’s fire like the world itself was afraid to look directly at her. My lungs screamed, my mana bar flickered, and my sword arm trembled like a glitching animation frame.

  Then I did what I always do when I’m outmatched.

  I turned to an exploit.

  I fished the vial from my belt, glass cracked, liquid inside swirling between violet and silver. Karzi’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing, girly?”

  “Science,” I said, and popped the cork.

  Scamantha had made two of these; one for Lunaris, so her class wouldn’t light up like a neon sign for every enemy with the same class and she could sneak and kill them cleanly. And one for me. For… situations exactly like this.

  I gulped it down. It tasted like sugar and battery acid. Karzi frowned. “What did you—”

  I was already pulling the second vial from my inventory.

  “Thirty, Cloudy,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “Burn ’em all.”

  Oh, yes.

  My body snapped awake. Mana flooded my veins like liquid lightning, and frost burst from my armor in a geyser of white-blue light. Every heartbeat was a thunderclap. The crater roared alive, runes underfoot igniting just from the overflow.

  Karzi’s expression finally cracked. “What—what are you—”

  “Improvising.”

  Her axe came down, a final arc of molten death, and my frost met it mid-swing. The collision wasn’t a clash. It was an extinction event.

  Cold detonated upward, drowning her fire in an instant. The blast shredded her flames, turned molten stone to snow, and slammed into her like a freight train made of blizzards.

  She didn’t scream. Karzi never screamed, but the shockwave threw her bodily across the crater. She hit the far wall with enough force to crater it again, the gold trim of her armor hissing as it froze solid.

  Silence followed; deep, alive with residual magic.

  Steam rose from my sword. My breath came out in slow clouds. For the first time since she’d walked through the smoke, she wasn’t smiling.

  I lowered my blade, frost still dripping from the edge, and exhaled. “Guess you should’ve worried about my powers after all.”

  The crater glimmered under the froststorm’s dying light, every shattered stone catching a bit of pale glow. Lola stood at the edge, wide-eyed. There were some weird Llama and Fty, but translucent beside her. Tzaltheron rumbled low, approving, and then vanished into another lunge.

  The frost still hissed along my blade, the crater humming with power that wasn’t supposed to exist yet. My body felt like a forge and a blizzard at once; every nerve burning with desire and freezing simultaneously.

  Karzi pushed herself upright. Smoke rolled off her armor in sluggish curls. Her grin was gone. “Girly!” she shouted across the broken square. “This’ll be costly!”

  She slammed her hand to her breastplate, and the runes carved into her armor blazed red.

  One by one, every enchantment on her, even her legendary axe, flared… and died.

  The light winked out like extinguished candles, leaving trails of ash and molten gold where power had once lived. But in their absence, something far worse ignited.

  Her axe flared white-hot. Fire poured through the seams of her armor like blood. She’d burned everything she had left; every stored spell, every charm, every safety limit.

  And she was smiling again.

  The air between us vibrated, heavy enough to warp sound.

  Then she charged.

  The impact shook the city.

  Literally.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Our weapons met midair with a shockwave that flattened everything within a hundred meters. Fire and frost detonated outward in twin halos, carving trenches through the ruins. Debris lifted and froze in midair before bursting into molten spray. Even the banners on the distant barracks rippled from the backlash.

  Karzi’s hair whipped wildly, embers streaking through the air, eyes wild. “Girly, this is… power to match a god!”

  I smiled back; sweetly, innocently. “Well, hello there, dear slaver. I’m a budding goddess.”

  We collided again.

  Her axe howled through the air, carving spirals of fire so bright they burned afterimages into my retinas. I met each one with frost. The surrounding temperature swung violently, from inferno to tundra in seconds. Stone cracked, water froze mid-drip, the world flickered between day and night.

  She swung high; I ducked low.

  She kicked; I slid on ice, turning the motion into momentum, blade flashing upward. Sparks exploded as our weapons met again. The recoil sent both of us sliding back across the crater, boots and heels cutting twin lines through melted stone.

  Every movement was smooth, automatic; like I was finally catching up to the person I pretended to be. My body remembered what my brain never dared to.

  Princess Imperial Style.

  Elegant. Controlled.

  The art I’d been forced to test for an entitled royal brat in the Empire back when I was still John. I’d thought the entire thing was laughable. Useless. Over-designed courtly nonsense meant to make nobles look graceful while murdering people. I had better arts.

  But now?

  Now it fits.

  As a short girl with a crown and sword, in a world trying to kill her, it fit perfectly.

  I twisted my wrist, shifting my stance. The rhythm changed. The Princess Royal Art wasn’t about force; it was about balance, flow, and grace under crushing pressure. Every motion built the next. Every parry became an opening.

  Karzi didn’t see the shift until it was too late.

  I caught her next swing on the flat of my blade, stepped in close, and let the frost explode outward. Ice crawled up her arm in fractal veins before she shattered it with a snarl, but that half-second hesitation was all I needed.

  I ducked under her guard, pivoted, and slammed the pommel of my sword into her ribs. The impact cracked through her armor.

  She staggered.

  I pressed the attack.

  A sweeping slash of ice… blocked.

  A reverse cut… met with fire.

  She twisted, sparks and frost scattering around us like broken stars.

  We were two storms trapped in the same space, tearing the crater apart one breath at a time. The ground beneath us glowed from the heat, then froze solid, then cracked again as we traded blows.

  Karzi roared, axe spinning in a circle of flame that forced me back. I leapt onto a slab of rubble, used it as a springboard, and came down from above, blade trailing an arc of frost so bright it carved a path through the smoke.

  The hit landed.

  Her armor cracked along the shoulder, glowing fractures spider-webbing across the golden trim.

  She stumbled back, gasping. “You—”

  “I learned,” I said, voice shaking from the effort. “I always learn. Then exploit.”

  She charged again, but slower now… her heat faltering, her movements uneven. I sidestepped, drew the cold around my body, and slashed.

  The frost erupted in a wave.

  Her fire shattered against it, extinguished in an instant. The backlash sent her spinning. She tried to counter, but the momentum betrayed her. I drove my shield into her chest; the force sending her flying backward.

  Karzi crashed through a broken column, hit the far wall, and vanished under an avalanche of rubble.

  Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of cooling stone and my ragged breathing. Steam curled around me in ghostly ribbons. My sword still glowed faintly, frost whispering along its edge.

  I looked up… and realized everyone was watching.

  Lola stood frozen near the building, hand pressed to her lips. The grandmasters, what was left of them, watched in grim awe. Even Tzaltheron had gone still, his four eyes fixed on me with something that looked disturbingly like respect.

  Karzi’s wolves lingered in the shadows, low but not daring to move toward that weird Llama or Fty.

  No one spoke.

  I took a slow breath, the air still tasting of ash and iron, and began walking.

  Step by step, across the shattered crater, toward the heap of broken stone where Karzi had fallen. Each step echoed loudly enough to make the silence ring.

  Her fire was gone. The armor’s glow had died. She was buried in dust and ruin, with only a faint flicker of heat leaking through the cracks. I raised my sword. Frost spiraled up my arm, gathering at the tip, the weight of power settling like a second heartbeat.

  I looked down at her through the haze, the taste of victory sharp and strange to my tongue.

  For a moment, she almost looked small.

  “I… yield!” she screamed, voice ragged and ridiculous. “You won, girly! I yield!”

  A laugh bubbled out of me; half relief, half disgust. “This can end either in your death or mine. I don’t plan on dying.”

  She flailed for theatrics, and for a stupid second I almost bit. “I call upon the God of War! I yield, so I’m a prisoner of war. You can’t kill me.” She looked straight at me, desperate hands clawing for dignity. In the ruined light she didn’t look like a slaver; she looked like a terrified kid wearing someone else’s cruelty like a coat.

  I still raised my sword to the side. The ice felt absurdly calm in my grip. “Are these your last words?” I asked, because what else do you do with a villain when the universe finally lets you close the book?

  A voice answered from nearby, soft and horribly officious. “You won. You’re now the victor; you own the city. Spare anyone who yields.”

  Sera, of course, emerged like an angelic tax inspector, all moral clauses and lumbar support. Great timing. Annoying angel bureaucrat, here to read me the rules. “Killing her would make you a war criminal.”

  Sue me. I wanted to say.

  Instead, I moved. Law or no law, compassion or compliance; I had a city to take and a debt to settle.

  Sera tried to step between us, hand raised, but she wasn’t fast enough. I didn’t hesitate. The blade came down clean as a verdict.

  Karzi’s eyes widened, a flicker, a last surprised human thing, and then her neck fell away. Blood spat, steam hissed as frost kissed the wound. The head tumbled from the heap of armor and stone, rolled, and landed with a dull thunk. Ice sealed the stump shut like a cold, ugly kiss.

  For a moment, the world was just that sound.

  The head thudding, the steam hissing, the tiny crackle of a magic seal knitting itself. Lola made a small noise at the edge of the crater, something like a sob that could have been laughter. Tzaltheron’s great body stilled, every muscle coiling and uncoiling like the tide.

  Sera’s face went flat. Thin lips pressed into a line that said, you will be litigated, but with more frost. “Prepare your case,” I said.

  “I… don’t? Boss will—” Her voice trembled only a fraction; you could tell she was trying not to be thrilled.

  I didn’t give a damn about lawsuits. “World’s better off without these monsters,” I said, and meant it like a threat and a benediction at once.

  “Tzaltheron, kill the Grandmasters!” I barked, letting the command ride like a whip.

  His answer was a hungry roar. He launched, chains whipping like the fingers of an angry world, claws aimed at the fallen, the broken. Delight rolled, pure, bestial joy, and then Sera was faster.

  She parried his strike with a golden brace of light, the impact ringing in my bones. A barrier bloomed, bright, unyielding, and I felt pressure press down from it like a lid being slammed shut on a jar.

  The spell tried to bind me, to straitjacket my motion, to make my limbs into paper puppets.

  I shrugged the first sting off with a physical shrug and an icy shove. I barreled past Sera, launching spears of diamond-cold at the Grandmasters.

  The ice bit; the shards screamed through air and magic; they stabbed into flesh and robe and rune.

  Black grandmaster… gone.

  Sera tried to intercept, palms spread, chanting the laws of mercy and conflict, but the boost from the burning levels was still hot in me. A wave of frost shoved her back, petals of snow fluttering from her sleeves.

  Yellow grandmaster… gone.

  “Stop!” another voice thundered. A force slammed into me that was not Sera’s bureaucratic gentle hand; it was heavy and absolute, a god’s spoon slapping a child. I felt the world tilt under that pressure: wind sucked out, mana choked, my steps faltered.

  I squinted into the shadowed alcove under the ruined building where the voice had come from. “Should I call Gatei?” I asked because when a god rumbles like an old radiator, it’s polite to check whether it wants backup.

  A grumble answered. Not a full sentence. Not yet. Classic deity energy: moodier than a teenager and twice as hungry. “We let this slide if you spare anyone who yields. Including these two.”

  The White and Purple Grandmasters struggled to their knees as if someone had pulled strings. They were paper patriots and shredded robes now, eyes flaring with humiliation you can only buy with centuries of self-importance. The Purple squeaked first. “I… do,” he said, voice thin. My skin went cold in a wrong way… the kind that tastes like iron.

  Say no. Say no. Say no, you white prick!

  White’s pride gnawed at him and then snapped like brittle bone. “I… yield,” he muttered.

  I clicked my tongue. “Fine. Custody them. I do not plan to babysit two grandmasters.” Practicality wins over vengeance, I told myself. Mostly because vengeance took energy, and my levels were counting down like a badly written save timer.

  Sera stepped forward, all linen and righteous clauses. “This is not our duty,” she said, and she actually looked confused, which was adorable in a bureaucratic way.

  Gods apparently did not enjoy having their war crimes rules used as suggestions. Perks of having Twir friends, I thought, which made me smile despite everything. The Twir liked inconvenient loopholes. I liked them even more. “I want to kill them, not hold them,” I said, because honesty was faster than diplomacy. “Your fault. Now… where are the Empire pricks? Especially that self-important one?”

  The god sighed like someone brushing dust off a throne. “Young gods,” he muttered, and the tone was half-exasperated, half-amused.

  “Let’s help our people while my levels are burning,” I told Lola with a grin.