The South Barracks Square looked like someone had taken a market, a battlefield, and a landfill, and decided, “Why not all three?”

  Stone underfoot, scarred from decades of drills, was now painted in blood and soot. The air was sticky with burnt sugar and sweat, threaded with that rose-stone sting Altandai cities always wore like perfume gone sour.

  Canvas stalls sagged on either side of the lane; half of them still smoked, the other half sold death by the minute.

  And between them… thousands.

  The Empire’s finest, allegedly. Shoulder to shoulder, shield rims clanking like a thousand slow coins. Mages in the rear flashed sigils that said loudly and unapologetically, Pay To Win. Healers blinked like emergency signs. Archers crouched on rooftops, bows tracking me the way vultures track a watermelon split open on hot asphalt.

  In short, I’d missed the party.

  No Rimebreak banners. No formation. No one was left standing. Just mud, trampled flags, and our snowflake crest half-buried in footprints.

  I slowed, heels scraping through blood-and-dust mush. The sound got obnoxiously loud. Conversations thinned. Lines shifted. The human herd, scenting greed and fear, rearranged itself around me like a current.

  Some faces registered me.

  Some registered the tag floating above my head like an annoying neon sign: Queen Charlie. Level 5… probably? Their brains did the math: Is she worth the cooldowns? The pause stretched, the sort of silence that smells like knives.

  “Great,” I muttered. “Another welcoming committee.” Mana still ticked in my veins, a warm hum under my skin. I looked down at the snowflake, half-smeared into the mud, then up at the army… a wall of polished helmets and carefully arranged teeth.

  “Alright,” I said, mostly to myself. “Let’s try this again.”

  The line moved.

  At first, I thought it was just a formation shift, but then I saw it. A seam parting through the crowd, before empire players filled a gap that was in their formation.

  Someone was running.

  A lone figure darted between the armored wall of players, shadows bending around her like liquid ink. She flickered in and out of view—there, gone, there again… daggers flashing when the light caught them.

  NightSwallow.

  For a second, my brain refused to connect it. My NightSwallow. She was a smear of motion, barely holding on while the last shreds of Dmitry’s army were being deleted.

  I lifted my hand, felt the molten weight of all those burned levels thrumming inside my veins. Mana answered like a tidal surge, sharp and cold, begging to be used. “Not her,” I hissed, and the frost jumped to obey.

  Power flooded out through my fingers, fast and reckless. I didn’t aim so much as choose a direction. The air cracked, the temperature plunging so suddenly that breath crystallized mid-exhale. A wall of ice erupted from the ground, cleaving the battlefield in two and slamming down between the encroaching line and NightSwallow’s retreat.

  The impact sent shards in every direction. Empire shields lit up, mages screamed counter-chants, and the entire formation stumbled backward under the shockwave.

  Ice burst outward again. I forced the ice to form a pillar under me, to distance myself, to show them… how dangerous I was.

  I didn’t even breathe. My other hand was already moving, using the ice sword as a focusing point.

  Mana coalesced along my arm. Spears. Hundreds of them. The difference was… terrifying. While was in the termite cave, each spear had been a struggle. Now, they came to me like instinct, like breathing.

  The sky above the South Barracks shimmered with frostlight.

  I threw my hand forward.

  The spears rained.

  Each impact bloomed into glittering annihilation. Mages turned into loot… instant, clean, like the world had just refunded their mistakes. Warriors raised shields, but even enchanted steel warped under the barrage. Frost crawled across metal, froze joints, shattered glass visors. A few held, barely; most didn’t.

  The line disintegrated.

  Ice shards buried themselves in walls, stalls, and cobblestones, leaving the place around my favorite explorer a graveyard of vapor and glitter.

  Silence fell in the aftermath, broken only by the ringing in my own ears and the creak of frozen armor settling.

  Steam curled off my shoulders. My sword hummed, still leaking frost. The numbers in my head kept ticking down, thirty burned levels, twenty-something minutes left, but right now, it didn’t matter.

  NightSwallow pushed herself upright behind the ice trap, staring at me through the haze, disbelief written all over her pale face. I met her eyes and smirked, trying to sound casual over the roaring mana still spilling through me. “You’re late to the party,” I said.

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  Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Only a small, trembling nod.

  Lola slid into the square left of the lane, with Llama to her side, and her eyes widened when she saw how many players we were facing. I got rid of some, but it was only a drop in the bottle, and there was a lot of whiskey left.

  I jumped down and forward, heels ringing against the cracked stone. The first soldier to step out wore a breastplate that was brand new, probably a gift from Nathanco, and had eyes that glittered with both contempt and calculation.

  “Charlie,” he barked, voice trying to be even and failing, “we can—”

  What they could I never learned, because Damon stepped forward, his face full of that stupid grin. “This square belongs to the Empire. Lay down your arms and surrender—”

  I smiled in a way that would’ve been probably illegal in three jurisdictions. “There’s been a change of management,” I said. “You can either update your résumé now or get to know my ice spear personally, my dear friend. But time’s ticking. Lay down your weapons and join Rimebreak. I’ll offer amnesty, and hey, I heard my parties are… lit?”

  Damon’s jaw twitched. He glanced at his men. He looked down the square. Somewhere behind him, an archer pulled a string a fraction tighter.

  I let the pause hang like a blade. Then I added, quieter: “I’d rather not kill a thousand players today. Help me keep that count low.”

  Someone in the back yelled, voice cracking like a cheap trumpet, “What do you mean, a change of management? I have a quest—”

  The sound broke into a thousand little murmurs, the kind that travel fast when people smell both glory and money. You could taste it like a coin on the tongue.

  “Queen’s will!” Lola shouted, voice cutting through the noise like a bell. “But limited-time offer! Accept the quest!”

  Perfect marketing, honestly. I give speeches; she issues the system paperwork.

  Teamwork.

  Damon narrowed his eyes, that same stupid, triumphant curl at the corner of his mouth. “Are you buying my comrades? Aren’t you worried about Nathanco? Or the Empire?”

  I laughed; because what else do you do when you’re two sentences away from having an entire army trying to make you a dead Queen? “Fear? Damon, I’ve never feared either of them. You’re the OG traitor, so of course you can’t join.”

  That hit a nerve.

  His grin snapped into something hurt. “Kill her! For the Empire!” he bellowed, and his men reacted like they’d been given permission to be violent humans again. A rain of arrows hissed up from the rooftops and the lines, and dozens of mages in the back started letting loose… spells braided and snapped like witches’ knitting gone wrong.

  “Damn!” I hissed, because honestly, what else? I abandoned the spear—it dissolved into frost-smoke in a blink—and shoved my hands out, knitting a dome of ice around me with the exact energy of someone catching a grenade and thinking, not today, asshole.

  The dome took arrows like a bargain bin takes complaints. Spells slammed into it: lightning spattered and cracked, fire licked and sputtered, a gravity pulse thumped and made the whole dome groan. For a moment, it felt like trying to hold a tantrum in your palms. The frost screamed in little crystalline fractures and then held. Because right now?

  My cheated stats were paying rent.

  Magic of every kind tried to push through. I tasted the flavors:

  — A dagger of raw void that felt like swallowing a piece of night.

  — A barbed curse that smelled like old coins and vinegar.

  — Some weirdo’s attempt at “nature magic”… leaves and vines that were trying to hug the dome to death.

  — Someone even lobbed a light grenade that smelled faintly of holy soap.

  And then someone across the square, mid-panic, flung a fork. Not a spear, not a throwing knife, but a fork. Chrome glinting, tines pointed with all the intent of a salad utensil trying to be dramatic. It sailed in a perfect, ridiculous arc, spinning like it had rehearsed this moment in front of a mirror.

  Time slowed.

  The fork cut a tiny, noble trail through the frozen air, heading straight for the bubble around me. I blinked. The fork hit the dome with a tiny plink, vibrating.

  Steam hissed, the dome flexed and then crumbled to tiny snowflakes, and the spells came straight to me.

  “Really? A fork? Of all things?”

  Without the dome, I had to switch from tank to speed-runner. The burning levels roared in my veins; mana spun through me like liquid frostlight. I pulled it tight, funneled every drop into my reflexes, my strength, the raw stat sheet of “please don’t die.”

  The world slowed to syrup.

  Bolts and fireballs and a whole choir of “you’re screwed” came screaming my way.

  I moved.

  My shield snapped up, turning aside a fire arc that would’ve cooked me medium-rare. My sword flashed, cutting arrows mid-flight… each impact bursting into snow. Sparks, frost, and adrenaline blurred together until I wasn’t sure if I was moving or if the world was just too slow to keep up.

  “Stupid! Fork!” I shouted into the chaos, because priorities matter, and then opened my hand. Frost bloomed outward, spiraling above my head like a crown of knives.

  Hundreds of spears coalesced… of the same kind I’d summoned against Mom, sharper now, angrier, hungry. The air screamed with cold pressure as they formed, and when I let them go, the sky answered.

  The volley fell… until not.

  A single, deep DANG split the world apart… as if a thousand-ton hammer had dropped straight onto the square.

  Everyone fell.

  Empire soldiers, mages, archers… all thrown onto their asses in a chorus of panic and clattering metal. Even my balance went to hell; I staggered, catching myself on my sword, frost biting into the stone beneath my heels. The square tilted in my vision, and my ears rang like someone had hit reality’s bell too hard.

  When I blinked, the blur away, only one other person was still standing.

  Gatei.

  Of course.

  The bastard was grinning, not just smug, but gleaming, like someone who’d bet on the apocalypse and just won.

  “We have goats somewhere,” I muttered, because my brain was fried enough to complain about that. I pointed vaguely toward the prone players. “And you’re on the wrong side. We battle them.”

  Gatei gasped, clutching his chest like I’d accused him of treason. “I would never side against goats.” He paused. “Well. Maybe against the angry ones.”

  I tried to straighten up, heroic posture and all, but the leftover pressure still pressed down like gravity had gained a grudge.

  My knees wobbled.

  Gatei laughed… full-bodied, ancient. “You’re bullying them,” he said, as if it were a compliment, and plucked an apple from thin air like he was collecting reality’s debts.

  It sparkled slightly.

  Apples shouldn’t sparkle. “And one certain god came whining,” he added, taking a bite. “Said you were upsetting the—”

  A shimmer of golden light slammed into the square. Sera materialized beside him, and instantly the force pushed her into a half-kneel. “Mister Gatei, our deal—”

  He looked at her. Blinked slowly. Then turned back to me and took another slow, dramatic, crunching bite of the apple.

  “No deal,” he said, mouth full, and winked.

  Then, he casually kicked the ground.

  There was no boom.

  No flash.

  Sera just… vanished.

  Gatei dusted off his coat, despite the fact that it was still somehow clean, then strolled forward through the smoke and bodies like he was walking into a pleasant brunch. Each step echoed too perfectly, as if the world was obliging him.

  “Nice to meet you again, young Queen.”

  I groaned, lowering my sword but not my guard. “Why do you always show up after I do all the hard work?”

  His grin widened… wide enough that it probably bent a law of physics. “Because that’s the fun part, Queen.”

  He tossed the half-eaten apple over his shoulder.

  It didn’t fall.

  It floated, spinning slowly behind him like an orbiting moon.

  “Now, let’s have a spar. You battle my apple.”