I stared at the apple as if it had just challenged me to karaoke. “I… I’m running out of time,” I said, tasting copper and frost on my tongue. “Can this wait? I need to subjugate the enemy and keep my people breathing.”

  Gatei grinned like a bartender who’d just swapped my water for whiskey. “While we fight, nothing will happen to them.” He toeed the ground… gentle, almost affectionate.

  The world bonged.

  The apple rocketed towards my face.

  I jerked sideways. The miss sang past my cheek hard enough to part my hair and peel a cold line along my skin. The shockwave punched my ears; like someone slamming a keg on the counter and daring gravity to complain.

  “Rude!” I gasped.

  The apple ricocheted off a shattered column, reversed, and came again… smaller than a fist, heavier than a cathedral bell, humming with smug divinity.

  Move, move, move!

  I shoved power through my veins, the burned levels answering like a shot of bottom-shelf courage. Wrong, hot, and effective.

  Ligaments iced. Tendons sang.

  The world slipped to half speed, like a bar fight in slow motion right before the chair hits someone’s back.

  I slid under the second pass, heels skittering on my own frost, coat snapping like a drunk’s last good excuse. The apple whistled overhead, dragging a wake that rattled my teeth.

  “Fine,” I muttered, throwing my sword and shield aside… one clatter, one clink, both useless for this tempo. “New drink.”

  I spread my hands and pulled.

  Cold rushed up my arms; not weather, will. Frost condensed into lines and angles, every breath a chisel, every heartbeat a hammer strike.

  First the spine… long, straight, a bar’s rail laid in ice.

  Then the crossguard… hooked like a bouncer’s elbow.

  The grip wrapped itself in layered rime, ridged for my palm, sized for two hands.

  The blade grew last: a slow, inevitable pour, edge extruding with a whisper like a glass being drawn just past full.

  When it was done, the sword weighed nothing and everything; a two-handed promise, pale blue and eager to ruin someone’s night.

  [Congratulations! You’ve created an item!]

  [Zweih?nder]

  Quality: 6-marvel (temporary)

  Restriction: Queen Charlie

  “Oh-ho-ho!” Gatei wheezed, laughing like a bell with a hangover. “Cute toothpick, love. Little queen brings a fancy popsicle to a riot.” He gave the apple a theatrical tut and flicked his toe; the piece of fruit obeyed.

  Third pass.

  I didn’t dodge.

  I stepped into it, set my hips, and brought the blade down in a bartender’s clean, practiced arc… one motion to end the tab and the argument.

  Impact detonated up my arms; the apple’s skin flash-froze, frost racing over it in fractal veins. My edge bit, skated, caught… and then the apple split like a bad tip.

  Two halves spun away trailing glittering vapor, thudding into the stone and sinking it an inch like cannon shot.

  Gatei’s smile thinned into something dangerous. The joke folded. He reached out, fingers like a priest’s, and the air hiccuped… space blinked.

  His hammer winked into being in his hand.

  “The boy was right,” Gatei murmured, not indulgent now, but focused in the way a barkeep pays attention when someone finally orders the hard stuff. He plucked a bottle from nowhere, bit the glass like it was brittle candy, swallowed a glint, and wiped a sparkle from his lip. “Hnh.”

  “Hope he also said I charge double for overtime,” I said, rolling my shoulders. The big blade purred in my hands, cold and hungry.

  Twenty-one minutes left. Maybe twenty. Don’t think about it.

  Gatei tapped the hammer against the ground. The square answered with a bass note I felt in my ribs. He leaned in, eyes suddenly neon over a greasy bar. “Show me, brat,” he said, voice that had been all mockery a second ago and now was all dare. “Show me if that trick of yours was luck… or if you’ve finally learned to drink with the gods.”

  The apple halves twitched.

  They reassembled mid-air with a wet snap and a peal of sound, now banded in faint golden rings like someone had married a fruit and a landmine.

  I rolled the sword in my hands; long, balanced, just heavy enough to make every swing feel like a rule. For a moment, I even smiled.

  Yeah. This fits my third demon style.

  Heavy blade, momentum-driven, no frills… every motion a gamble and a promise to the enemy. I’d practiced it in demon realms on test servers for months, with my old boots that let me walk on air like it was solid ground.

  Except… those boots weren’t here.

  I glanced down. I had better-looking heels, but they were smoking faintly from frost backlash. Right. No sky-walking this time. Only ground, pain, and whatever magic I could still steal from physics.

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  Gatei’s hammer pulsed in his hand like a slow heartbeat. He tilted his head, grin gone crooked. “Ready?” The word came half-growl, half-laugh, like a storm trying to flirt.

  “Never,” I said, and swung first.

  The impact hit like colliding storms; his hammer met my ice blade with a sound that split the air into clean halves. The shockwave burst outward, peeling snow off the stones and flinging loose armor plates into the air. The apple shot off to the side, a glittering comet of divine fruit tumbling end over end before vanishing into the rubble.

  I caught the next swing out of instinct.

  The hammer came from below, faster than something that big had any right to move.

  My arms screamed under the weight. Frost cracked down my forearms, the sword bending in a cracking sound, but it held by my will.

  Still, barely, I held my ground.

  Or not.

  The force lifted me off my feet.

  I hit the ground sliding backward, carving twin trails of ice as my heels dug in. Across the square, Gatei stumbled too, dust curling around his boots. We both stopped at the same time, measuring each other through the haze.

  “Oh-ho.” His tone wasn’t mocking this time; it was the low, surprised hum of a bartender realizing you can actually hold your liquor. Then came that wolfish grin. “Well, call me impressed. That was… competent.”

  “Thanks,” I panted. “I try to disappoint people slowly.”

  He barked a laugh, thunder caught mid-belch. “That’s the spirit! Mediocrity with ambition!”

  I didn’t wait.

  I flung my hand out, frost exploding across the cobblestones in a blinding burst. The air between us froze solid in jagged ripples… an impromptu wall, a stalling move, anything to get one breath ahead.

  Gatei didn’t even slow.

  He laughed—a full, joyous laugh—and tore through it. The wall cracked from his hammer’s swing, exploding into frost shrapnel that hissed through my hair. He came from below again, a rising strike meant to split the world’s spine.

  I met him, both hands on the blade, ice shrieking under pressure. Sparks of frost and molten magic filled the air. He was stronger by leagues, but he wasn’t using a style, just raw power, and that gave me inches to survive. Barely.

  The collision flung us apart again.

  My heels scraped across the ice, sliding until I almost hit nearby players, still splattered on the ground. He landed lightly, as if gravity didn’t apply to him.

  Then a thought hit me: I can flash-freeze the air.

  It didn’t make sense. Physics screamed, magic shrugged, and I was too tired to care. I focused on the cold under my feet, forcing mana downward. The air solidified with a glassy ping. For one impossible moment, I stood on nothing… suspended above the square.

  The platform quivered.

  Then sank.

  Then fell.

  “Okay, not stable,” I hissed, flailing as it dropped out from under me. I landed hard, stumbling, catching myself on the sword like a drunk grabbing a railing.

  Gatei howled with laughter, actually bent double, hammer hanging loose. “You trying to build stairs to heaven?” he wheezed. “Tell you what, brat… if you get there, save me a good fire.”

  He reached into the air as if there were was a shelf only he could see, pinched something glowing, and popped it into his mouth.

  Fire.

  Actual fire.

  He chewed, swallowed, exhaled a curl of smoke, and grinned wide enough to make the flames reflect in his teeth. “Bit overdone. Pairs well with obsidian.”

  I grinned back, wiping blood and frost off my lip. The magic still tingled under my skin, ready, willing. The moment the ice formed, it worked… if only for a blink. But that was enough. Enough to move faster, jump higher, fight smarter.

  “For a fleeting second,” I said, raising my blade, the air frosting under my soles again, “I can step on the sky.”

  Gatei’s grin softened. “Ain’t that how it starts,” he murmured, voice gone almost nostalgic.

  I met his eyes and smiled. “Gatei,” I said, steady now, crown humming faintly against my skull, “I hope you’re prepared for this.”

  He rolled his shoulders, hammer flaring faintly in reply. “Prepared? Brat, I was born for bad ideas.”

  Gatei moved first.

  One blink and he was already on me, hammer swinging in a wide, lazy arc that shattered the air itself. The impact threw a storm of dust and frost upward; I leaned into it, heels sliding, muscles locking, every nerve screaming with the effort to keep my footing.

  He pressed. I yielded, but not in retreat; with the flow. The technique wasn’t about defiance; it was about rhythm, about turning pressure into movement.

  So I moved.

  Frost condensed under my feet in tiny, perfect disks. The first one cracked under the weight of the clash, but I was already stepping onto the next, and then the next, rising through my own frozen staircase. Each step flashed into existence for just a moment, just long enough to carry me upward before dissolving into mist.

  Gatei swung again, the hammer whistling up from below, a meteor with a sense of humor.

  I vaulted sideways, used the new platform to pivot, and brought my sword down in a counter-arc. He caught it one-handed, the impact scattering shards of frost across the sky like broken glass in sunlight. The sound was thunder’s meaner cousin.

  He pushed me back again, and again I turned it into ascent.

  Step. Block. Step. Spin. Swing.

  We climbed higher—five meters, ten, fifteen—the ruined square shrinking beneath us, a patchwork of smoke and shattered stone. Still, I built new footholds with every breath, weaving a path of frozen light through the open sky.

  Gatei just floated. Effortless. His feet never touched anything. He drifted up through my chaos as if it were a warm bath, hammer resting over his shoulder, grin lazy, amused. And every swing he threw came faster, heavier.

  Physics didn’t bother him.

  Physics sent him apology letters.

  I barely met each strike. Every clash sent numbness crawling up my arms, my frost-sword fracturing and repairing in the same heartbeat. Each time I clawed for more mana, poured every ounce of will into the blade, Gatei answered in kind… matching, then surpassing, like Karzi all over again.

  The universe’s most condescending déjà vu.

  “I don’t have time,” I hissed, catching his hammerhead on my sword and twisting it aside. Sparks of frost and light exploded between us. “I need to finish my job.”

  He brought the hammer overhead. “Conquering the city?”

  I caught the swing with crossed arms. Frost burst around us like shattered mirrors. “I’ll free every slave!”

  Gatei’s grin tilted. “Oh, they’re already free, brat. You just haven’t noticed the chains changed hands.” He leaned in, voice dropping. “Look at you. You've got power, and the first thing you did was execute someone.”

  That one hit harder than a hammer.

  I didn’t think. I swung. The blade roared, frost blazing from its edge as I poured everything into the strike. For the first time, Gatei didn’t block. He slipped aside, smooth as a breath, coat snapping behind him. The sword carved a slice of vacuum where he’d stood.

  He gave a small, incredulous laugh. “Well, I’ll be damned. You meant it.”

  “She deserved it!” I shouted, voice cracking with more than strain. “So did the Grandmasters!” I pressed the attack, weaving and stepping through the sky, every footfall sparking a burst of snow that fell like starlight. I didn’t even know why he was fighting me; only that if I stopped, I’d collapse.

  That this was the only way to stay real.

  “She had a life in front of her,” Gatei said, dodging again, hammer spinning once in a lazy flourish before he struck from above; an angle no physics textbook would endorse. “She had a duty, people to lead, and a destiny to fulfill. You stole that ending from her.”

  Then, quieter: “And you called it mercy.”

  I raised my sword just in time; the hammer met it mid-arc, flaring light like an eclipse. “I don’t care!” I snarled, shoving against him, my feet pressing new platforms into being midair, the frost halo flaring brighter. “The world’s better without her.”

  Gatei laughed. A delightful sound that rolled across the clouds. “Spoken like every brat I’ve ever met.” He twisted the hammer free and hovered there, eyes alight with that terrible, joyful wisdom. “Tell me, coldling; who gets to pick which monsters get forgiven? Who are you to decide the fate of nations?”

  My body ached, my mana screamed… but the grin still came. “Who am I?” I asked, sword steady, frost halo widening beneath my feet as I danced to stay in the air. “I was a princess; now I am a queen. That should be enough. But in the future, I’ll be…”

  I met his glowing eyes across the frozen sky.

  “…a goddess.”

  Gatei tilted his head, grin returning… small, knowing, and a little sad. “Careful with that word, brat,” he mumbled.

  “That’s how the last one started.”