Stupid Gatei.

  I swung first, because of course I did. There’s only so much smug grinning a girl can take before something has to be cut in half. The frost flared along my blade, bright enough to make my eyes water. I aimed for his chest, the one spot that looked like it might actually hurt to hit.

  Gatei caught the blow on the flat of his hammer, like he’d been waiting for me to do that since the dawn of sarcasm. The sound was less “clash of gods” and more “world’s angriest church bell.”

  “Gatei!” I snarled, forcing another swing. “Why are you blocking me?!”

  He barked a laugh. “Blocking? Oh-ho-ho, little Queen—I’m merely passing by. I’m just watching.”

  I glared at him and slashed again, ice trailing in a wide arc that cracked the air like a whip. “Yeah? Looks a hell of a lot like stopping me!”

  Another clash. Sparks and frost exploded between us. My arms went numb, but I pushed harder, forcing mana through muscle and bone until every nerve screamed like a live wire. My breath came out ragged, white and steaming. The frost platforms flared under my heels, one after another, each a half-second of borrowed ground.

  Gatei’s hammer blurred.

  Every swing heavier and faster. My technique turned frantic, messy, desperate; a dance done on a table too small for two. But somehow, through some miracle of sweat and stupidity, I pushed him back.

  One step, then two.

  [Attention! You learned about a skill: Charlie Sword Arts]

  [Charlie Sword Arts]

  [???]

  Description: A self-forged sword art. Unlike classical martial forms that follow rhythm or stance, Charlie’s art rewrites its own pattern mid-battle; reading opponents, exploiting openings, and converting defense into acceleration. The result appears chaotic, but each strike is a calculated exploit.

  Cloudy notes: I don’t know whether I should register it as a new art or fold it under adaptive combat theory. It should be its own art, but I need more data to classify.

  He grinned like a man watching his favorite drink finally kick in. “I was curious about you,” he said between blows. “All frost and fury, but something more inside. I wanted a taste—”

  He didn’t finish. I planted a platform under my heel, kicked off it, and drove my sword forward. Frost burst between us; the impact shoved him backward through the air.

  “—there it is,” he finished with a wheeze that was half laugh, half awe. He spun midair, hammer balanced over his shoulder like a lazy moon. “I was right. You’ve already bitten power before. You’ve already danced with gods.” His grin widened, eyes gleaming with ember. “That boy? He wouldn’t survive a minute against the version of you standing here.”

  My grip tightened on the hilt. “I don’t have time,” I hissed, forcing the words through gritted teeth. My lungs burned. My heartbeat was a metronome for bad decisions. I glanced down… and froze.

  We were high.

  Not a few meters; thirty at least. The square below looked like a board game someone had set on fire. Thousands of players and guards stared up, tiny and still. The chaos of the battle had stopped; they were watching.

  “I… need to finish this quest.”

  I lunged again, frost flaring brighter than ever, my platforms blooming under me in rapid rhythm. Gatei met me halfway, expression shifting; calmer now, almost reverent. His hammer swept up in a clean, effortless arc.

  “And you shall,” he said, voice dropping to something weird. “I only came to see if the crown fits when it’s blood-soaked.”

  Something shifted. Subtle, but real. The world breathed. The surrounding air shimmered as if reality was recalculating its odds.

  Then the system caught up.

  [Congratulations! The city of Altandai has witnessed the clash of gods, and your Myth grows!]

  [Congratulations! Twir Gatei recognizes you as Mythical Queen.]

  The notifications hovered in the air, mocking and glorious all at once.

  Gatei threw his head back and laughed, the sound booming over the battlefield like an overdue thunderclap. “See? You get to fight, I get the show!” he called down, voice rich with mirth. “You’re welcome, little Queen!”

  He rested the hammer on his shoulder and winked.

  “Now go on… finish your crusade. You’ve got a million souls waiting to see what kind of goddess you decide to be. You decide their fate after all.”

  Then he stopped fighting. Just floated there with a simple grin.

  I wanted to say something witty—like, thanks for the existential validation, Gatei, buy a round?—but I swallowed it. Pride’s a heavy thing when you’ve already burned thirty levels like a bar tab.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Instead, I looked down.

  “Lola!” I shouted. “Or anyone loyal to me. RUN AWAY FROM THIS SQUARE NOW!” I shouted down and searched for their leader. Damon was impossible to miss. He had armor that screamed, “I own an estate vaguely suspiciously named ‘Nathanco’,”. I let the platforms die under my heels and stopped making ground.

  Gravity claimed me.

  Panic tried to take the wheel, but I caught it by the collar. With a single inhale, I spun ice from my palms; thin, obedient, the kind of cold that does what it’s told. It wrapped the surrounding air into a cocoon, feathering my fall like someone swapping my parachute for a duvet.

  I hit the ground gently enough to pretend I meant it. Steam fogged up the crown of my head; frost beaded on my lashes. I slid into the players, heels whispering on glassed stone, sword humming like a well-timed joke.

  “Damon!” I called, voice amplified by the ring from NightSwallow. “If you surrender now, I’ll spare you and everyone who raised arms against me.”

  And if not… you’ll freeze.

  Mana answered like a live wire around my spine. Thank Saevrin I didn’t need to use runes with free-form magic. Just brute force it with more mana. The air thrummed; the spell bubbled under my skin like anxious champagne.

  Contain, contain, contain. Don’t let it go wild.

  Damon shook his head, the smirk flexing. “You don’t understand, do you?” he said, as if explaining taxation to a particularly stupid pigeon. “You may have won over the local NPCs, even that dwarf over there, but I’ve got more players on my side. Boys!”

  “And girls!” a voice yelled, and a pack of melee players circled, bristling like a flock of sentient hedgehogs. They looked unsure; expensive armor does that, but Damon was sure.

  Confidence was contagious, and his was the kind sold in bulk at strategy shops.

  I glanced back at Gatei. He was still floating serenely unbothered, chewing on something that definitely should not be chewable. Swords? Maybe a shard of reality. I shook my head and let him be a Twir with sense-of-humor issues.

  The spell I was forming swelled. It wanted to tear out of me and run around shouting, free the pigeons! But I kept it wrapped tight with cold and focus. Freeform magic was glorified arm-wrestling: shove more mana into the problem until the problem blinks. Thank the stars I hadn’t hit the “poetic rune” aisle today.

  A voice murmured near my ear: “...and me.”

  I turned. That catgirl assassin. Her eyes narrowed; her mouth was a sealed vault. She smelled faintly of trouble and laundry detergent. “Hi,” I said, because apparently we were doing small talk during what could be filed as a massive enemy confrontation. “Your name?”

  She narrowed her eyes as if the question were a tax audit. Fine. I let it slide. Some things were worth not interrogating, like whether to arm-wrestle a Gatei.

  “It’s fine,” I said, grinning to cover whatever panic was trying to climb my throat. “I offered you a chance. So… thanks for the equipment?” I gestured vaguely at her blades as if they’d walked here by themselves.

  Damon smirked brighter, a predator with a decorative collar. “You also had your chance. Now the Empire gets the city.”

  “HEY GUYS! ACCEPT THE QUEST FOR OUR SIDE AND FIGHT THEM. I’LL KILL YOU, BUT NO HARD FEELINGS—AND JOIN US LATER!” I shouted like some deranged quest-giver.

  “Kill?” Damon laughed and nodded toward catgirl.

  She flicked her tail, yes, actual tail, and stepped forward, blades singing faintly.

  The circle tightened. The players shifted, calculating DPS like accountants smelling overtime. I flexed the crown against my skull and let the cold hum louder, like a throat clearing before a speech. Gatei chomped a sword and winked.

  I heard only a few players fight, scattered clashes, messy and uncoordinated, but it was something. Someone had chosen us.

  I’d take them.

  Now it was time to show everyone what burning thirty levels was actually worth.

  I looked at Damon first, his smug grin practically insured against humility, then at the catgirl assassin, her beautiful eyes fixed on my neck like she was deciding where to put the trophy plaque.

  Fine. Let her stare.

  I raised my hand. The magic I’d been holding in check sang a low, frosty hum that crawled up my arm and made my teeth ache. It was half my mana in one spell, maybe more.

  Totally worth it. So, so worth it.

  The air folded around my fingers, and the frost bloomed outward; not gently, not gracefully.

  It didn’t spread.

  It detonated.

  A shockwave of ice rippled across the square, clear and blue and impossibly fast. Every surface it touched screamed into stillness… stone, banners, bodies, even the air itself froze mid-motion.

  Flames turned to crystal; sound cracked and fell silent. It was like watching the world forget how to be warm.

  The wave rolled in every direction, a perfect sphere of annihilation expanding from my outstretched palm. For a single breath, it looked beautiful… like glass growing across reality itself.

  Then the beauty broke into violence.

  Players didn’t even have time to scream. The unlucky ones flash-froze where they stood, death instant, clean, merciless. Their health bars blinked out faster than my patience, and their gear clattered to the ground in a glittering rain of loot. Those who somehow survived, just barely, hit the cobbles like toppled statues, frozen mid-movement, eyes wide and empty.

  I guided the magic forward, reining it just before the southern barracks. The frost stopped on command, a perfect line between victory and overkill. The silence that followed was loud, as if to make you remember how small you were.

  Only a few players still stood, smoke curling off their cooldowns, blinking into the aftermath with the haunted look of people who realized their build didn’t include “anti-apocalypse.”

  The catgirl was one of them.

  She emerged from a magic bubble, her outline flickering. “Next time, pay me more than them,” she hissed and lunged.

  Too slow.

  I turned, raised my sword, and cut through her charge in one lazy, decisive motion. She tried to vanish, fade, slink… it didn’t matter. The strike caught her mid-blink, split her form like a bad illusion, and she popped out of existence.

  Her daggers, boots, and a frankly ridiculous number of trinkets clattered to the surrounding ground.

  I exhaled, letting the sword’s glow fade.

  That’s when I heard footsteps, dozens of them, boots striking in organized rhythm. Lola’s voice carried first. “Looters! Catalogue the drops by player name—we can ransom the good gear back later. High-value items—”

  I didn’t even look back, just smiled.

  Business as usual.

  I was already walking toward the barracks, frost still smoking off my heels. Thanks to my stat buffs, it took only a few seconds to cross the ruined square. When I reached the massive iron gate, the guards were already waiting… lined up, rigid and terrified.

  I stopped beneath them, snow still falling in quiet, crystalline flakes.

  “Yield,” I simply said.

  For a moment, nothing. Then a lone player, some leftover idiot, screamed, “No!” and fired his crossbow.

  The shot barely left the string before three guards tackled him to the ground. The bolt shattered midair, frozen solid before it could even get close. The great gate creaked open and a guard captain stepped through, flanked by his elites… armor polished, faces drawn tight with exhaustion.

  He stopped in front of me, dropped to one knee, and his men followed. “We serve the new Grandmaster,” he said, head bowed low.