A frown rested on Domain-Lord Vexia’s face. She sat in a commandeered merchant house, watching an inactive glass orb and wishing she'd brought better wine.

  The room was gaudy in the way only nouveau-riche Thalassarian merchants could manage. Gold-leaf trim on furniture that didn't need it, silk curtains dyed an aggressive shade of purple, and a carpet so plush it made walking feel like an insult to practicality.

  She'd killed the family who owned it three days ago. Efficiently with no witnesses. Their bodies were currently feeding the fish in the harbor.

  The wine was disappointing though. Too sweet. She'd expected better from a house this ostentatious.

  She swirled the goblet, watching the red liquid catch the light filtering through the window. Below, she could hear the distant sounds of Kaelan's forces scrambling to defensive positions. Shouting, the clatter of armor, the nervous energy of men who knew they were about to die but hadn't accepted it yet.

  Vexia didn't care one bit about any of that. She didn't care if Kaelan won or lost. Her eyes were on the Jewel.

  A knock at the door interrupted her contemplation of mediocre vintages.

  "Enter," she said without looking.

  The door opened. A man in royal guard livery stepped inside, closing it quietly behind him. His movements were too precise, too controlled. Normal guards slouched but this one moved like a predator pretending to be domesticated.

  One of hers. A Stigma-Bound wearing someone else's face.

  "Report," Vexia said, still not looking at him.

  "The battle has begun, my lady. We had to make a false shot at the Prince’s soldier to get things started though. The barbarians are advancing on the eastern gate now. Heavy losses on our side. The Princess is... doing something unusual."

  That made her turn. "Unusual how?"

  The informant hesitated. "The soldiers are glowing. Ours are deserting in droves. It's mostly the Prince’s fault, he talked too much before the war started. Morale collapsed across three companies in the last ten minutes."

  Vexia set down her goblet. "Mass desertions? Already?"

  "Yes, my lady.”

  “Huh.”

  Vexia had expected it since people weren't really satisfied with Kaelan. They'd love Isolde to take control. But she hadn't thought it'd be this quick.

  By her calculations, while Kaelan's forces were cowards and uncertain, they should have held for at least an hour. Fear and threats usually bought that much time.

  She stood, walking to the glass orb on the table. It was dormant, a sphere of polished crystal the size of a child's head.

  She hadn't bothered to watch since that'd cost her mana, but this deserved a watch. She placed a hand on its surface. Her mana pulsed into it, and the orb flickered to life.

  The image was grainy at first, then sharpened. She was looking down at the battlefield from the perspective of one of her planted agents on the walls.

  What she saw made her pause.

  Isolde Thalasson was glowing.

  Not metaphorically. The Princess stood at the center of the assault, blue light radiating from her like she'd swallowed a star. Massive mirrors, each one taller than a man, orbited her position in a slow, rotating constellation.

  They weren't physical constructs, Vexia realized. They were solidified mana, her Class made manifest.

  And they were winning the war by themselves.

  Vexia watched a company of archers loose a volley. Two hundred arrows, all aimed at Isolde's advancing infantry. The shafts passed through one of the orbiting mirrors and emerged on the other side wrong. Not just redirected. Transformed. Each arrow blazed with blue fire, moving twice as fast, and they curved mid-flight to slam back into the archers who'd fired them.

  Screams erupted on the walls and men burned.

  "What a stupid Class," Vexia muttered, frowning deeply. This was absurd. "Few are as useful as it in war."

  As for any arrows that made through the gaps of the mirrors?

  Thorvyn Valteria, moving like lightning, intercepted them before they could reach Isolde.

  A mage on the battlements conjured a fireball. Massive, roiling, the kind of spell that took a 4th Ascension caster everything they had. He hurled it at Isolde's position.

  One of her mirrors caught it.

  The fireball didn't just reflect. It split into three smaller copies, but each one brighter, hotter, faster. They screamed back toward the walls and detonated in a chain reaction that turned an entire tower into rubble.

  Vexia's tail lashed. "A 4th Ascension making the same difference as a 7th. Unacceptable."

  The orb's perspective shifted as her agent moved. Now she could see the broader battlefield. Marius Thalasson was there too, his hands weaving patterns in the air. Sand soldiers rose from the earth, dozens of them, crude humanoid shapes with no faces. They didn't fight like men. They swarmed like ants, throwing themselves at arrows and spells, dying by the score but buying time for the living soldiers to advance.

  The walls were holding, but barely. Kaelan's forces were crumbling. Entire sections were throwing down their weapons, hands raised in surrender.

  Vexia stood, smoothing her dress.

  She'd been waiting for the perfect moment to descend, to steal the Crown Jewel while Isolde was too distracted to notice a predator in the chaos.

  Now's the time.

  She was halfway to the window when the door burst open again.

  A different informant. This one wasn't pretending to be calm. His face was sheet-white, blood splattered across his armor, and he was breathing like he'd run up ten flights of stairs.

  "My lady! Ships!" He gasped, making her confused. "Unidentified ships approaching from the southern harbor!"

  Vexia froze. "What ships?"

  "We don't know!" The informant bent over, hands on his knees. "Black sails. Moving fast. They'll reach the docks within the hour… m-maybe less."

  Her heart skipped a beat. Her mind raced. Thragg? No. The Executor wouldn't bother with ships.

  If he wanted to face her, he'd tear a hole in reality and step into this room while gloating about it. He loved his dramatic entrances. Plus, he had zero reason to get involved in a kingdom's petty politics so directly. He hunted bigger prey.

  Then who?

  Too many variables. The situation was spiraling. She walked back to the orb, leaning over it, watching the gate battle intensify.

  The barbarian girl was there, laughing like a maniac as she hammered the reinforced wood with a club. Every impact sent shockwaves through the structure.

  Beside her, Captain Yasafina fought with textbook precision, her blade a blur. And then Isolde did something.

  Something that made Vexia change her mind about all this.

  ****

  An arrow punched through my shoulder.

  I didn't even slow down. The wound was already closing, flesh knitting itself back together with a wet, organic sound that made Borric gag when he saw it earlier.

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

  No, this wasn't some crazy ability from reaching C-rank in the Valtherian Physique.

  This was because I'd killed a Troll this morning.

  It was an ugly bastard, Level 58, lurking near the supply wagons. Ragna and I put it down before breakfast, and I'd absorbed its [Regeneration (B)] trait through Osmotic Evolution.

  Best decision I'd made all week.

  "That's still disgusting," Borric shouted over the din of battle, watching another arrow punch into my thigh and the wound seal itself seconds later.

  "Practical beats pretty!" I shouted back, yanking the shaft out and tossing it aside. Sure it hurt, but a barbarian didn't crumble from pain.

  We were fifty yards from the eastern gate. Siege ladders clattered against stone. Soldiers scrambled up, getting shot, falling, getting replaced. Overhead, Isolde's mirror array was turning the sky into a kaleidoscope of reflected death.

  Every fireball the enemy mages launched got caught, amplified, sent back twice as strong.

  "She's such a monster," Ragna laughed from near the gate, slamming away at it. We didn't need battering rams when we had Ragna, all hardened in her draconic scales.

  "My daughter would have loved watching this!" Borric added.

  I circled Isolde's position, staying close. My job wasn't to storm the gate. It was to make sure nothing touched her while she reshaped the battlefield with mirrors and light.

  A ballista bolt screamed toward her head.

  I stepped in front of it.

  [Endure] triggered. The bolt hit my chest and shattered against my body like hitting a boulder. The impact still hurt, a deep, bone-jarring thud, but I was already moving. Tracking the ballista's position.

  "Isolde!" I shouted. "Ten o'clock, the tower!"

  She didn't even look.

  One of her mirrors pivoted, caught a mage's lightning spell mid-cast, and redirected it straight into the ballista crew. The weapon exploded. Splinters and screaming.

  This was what I was waiting for! I could practically see how the soldiers’ morale was boosted every time she cast a spell.

  We continued fighting but this wouldn't ever stop. We'd have to break into the city, however the gate hasn't broken yet…!

  I suddenly had an idea.

  "Isolde, the gate!" I called back. Sweat poured down her face, her hands weaving light like she was conducting an orchestra of violence. "Ragna needs support! Can you use that clone spell on her?!"

  She turned.

  The gate was reinforced oak banded with iron, designed to hold against battering rams and bad weather.

  Ragna was still hitting it anyway. Over and over. Her club rang like a church bell with every impact. Yasafina was right beside her, but the gate was really strong.

  The wood was splintering, but slowly.

  “I don't know if it'll work!” Isolde yelled through the sounds. “But I'll give it a shot!”

  Isolde raised her staff. Light pulsed from her, and suddenly there were five Ragnas. Five Yasafinas. Duplicates created from mirrors and will, all of them hammering the gate in perfect synchronization.

  CRACK.

  The hinges shattered. The gate exploded inward in a shower of broken wood and twisted iron. The clones didn't last, they burst into light particles, but the result had been achieved. Ragna tumbled through, laughing, covered in splinters.

  Solstara's defenders scattered like startled birds.

  "GATE'S OPEN!" someone screamed.

  “Yes! Rush in!” Isolde' commanded as her forces poured through the breach. A flood of steel and fury.

  “I’m a little tired Thorvyn, I'll need to take Mana Potions!” Isolde told me, so I stayed beside her, watching the chaos unfold.

  Kaelan was atop the inner wall, flanked by robed figures. He looked like a cornered animal. Wild-eyed with desperation.

  And he didn't miss how Isolde’s mirrors vanished for just a moment while she began to take out Mana Potions.

  Despite everything he'd said earlier about traps and warnings, fear clutched his heart now.

  Every man wanted to survive, after all.

  "ARCHERS!" he screamed. "KILL HER! KILL THEM ALL!"

  The archers drew. Mages began to cast. All targeting Isolde, even as an army rushed through the broken gate below.

  I activated the Mantle of Valteria.

  The crimson aura erupted from my shoulders, a massive, howling cape of raw energy that lashed upward, tearing at the sky. It roared. The sound wasn't wind. It was fury given voice, the echo of every Valterian warrior who'd ever refused to kneel.

  I stood in front of Isolde, axe raised.

  The attacks came.

  Arrows. Dozens of them. A volley dark enough to blot out the sun. Lightning bolts crackling through the air followed too, and fireballs streaked downward like falling stars.

  I moved.

  I began to dance. The axe became a blur in my hands, spinning, cutting, deflecting. A dozen arrows shattered against the blade and a hundred more I caught mid-flight and snapped in half. A fireball, I bisected it, the halves exploding harmlessly to either side of me.

  The Mantle rippled with every impact, absorbing force and radiating it back as pressure. Weaker spells simply dissolved against it, their mana unraveling like wet paper.

  A lightning bolt punched through my guard and hit my chest. My body absorbed it. [Storm Call] flared to life automatically, channeling the electricity back into the air as a crackling storm above my head.

  I grinned, feeling the Troll's regeneration knit the burns closed.

  "Is that all you've got?!" I roared at the walls.

  The archers and mages froze as the Mantle of Valteria flared in anger.

  Their knees trembled.

  Some lowered their weapons. Others just stared, mouths open, watching a single barbarian stand against an entire city's worth of firepower and laugh.

  By then, Isolde had finished her potions as mirrors returned. Her forces had also climbed the walls. Soldiers in silver and blue swarmed over the battlements. Kaelan's defenders were breaking, throwing down swords, raising hands.

  "Fire! I said fire!" Kaelan shrieked, voice cracking. "That's an order!"

  Only some moved. Most bows stayed lowered. Staffs went still. Even those few that were shooting stopped when a voice boomed across the air.

  "Nobody's going to shoot."

  The voice was new. Loud. It carried the weight of ocean waves crashing against stone.

  Every head turned.

  A figure stepped onto the wall behind Kaelan. He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a salt-stained naval coat and a cutlass at his hip. Dark hair tied back. A face that belonged on old coins.

  [7th Ascension]

  My Dragon's Eye flared. The number hovered above his head, and I scowled.

  It was a powerhouse.

  My enhanced senses allowed me to pick up the conversation that unfolded there.

  Kaelan's face drained of color. "You... what is this?"

  "What is what, you bastard brother of mine?" The man smiled but there was no warmth in it. Just cold, oceanic fury. "I didn't want to see these stone walls ever again. But you know what messed with my head? Hearing what you did to Father."

  Brother… Father… ah, that's Isolde’s oldest brother. The one who was exiled?!

  Beside him stood another figure. She was shorter with one eye hidden behind a black patch. She was grinning like a shark.

  Somehow, I recognised her. I'd met her before.

  Captain Jora. The one-eyed pirate from the Mercenary Guild, who'd warned me about Isolde.

  She waved at me like we were old friends.

  So this Jora… she is friends with Isolde’s oldest brother? Suddenly it all made sense. I was so shocked that I turned off the Mantle. I didn’t have much choice either, my internal organs were starting to hurt really bad.

  [Aura: 1574/7000]

  My Aura, which was previously called Mana by the System, had gone down by a long shot too. The Mantle was incredibly powerful, but it wasn’t super sustainable.

  Kaelan stumbled backward, eyes darting around frantically. "Vexia! Where–"

  "Vexia?" The pirate prince laughed. "That Domain Lord? Your pet demon fled the moment my ships appeared on the horizon." He pulled a bottle of cheap wine from his coat, uncorked it with his teeth, and drank. "Probably didn't want to explain who allowed her to play kingmaker with you in my kingdom."

  He tossed the bottle aside. It shattered against the wall, red wine spreading like blood across white stone.

  "Guards!" Kaelan shrieked, voice breaking. "Seize him! That's an order!"

  Not a single man moved.

  They were trembling, yes, but not from fear of Kaelan. The pirate prince's presence was suffocating. Not just power. Respect and recognition. Every man on that wall had grown up hearing stories of Valtor Thalasson.

  The Crown Prince led the Azure Armada to victory after victory before his exile. How could they dare disrespect him?

  Brothers in arms didn't forget.

  One of the older generals stepped forward, his face grim. "We can't, Your Highness." He was looking at Valtor, not Kaelan. "The day I raise my weapon toward the Crown Prince is the day I take my own life."

  The pressure in the air intensified. Even from the ground, I felt it pressing down. It made Isolde's amplified magic feel small by comparison.

  “Brother…” she muttered in shock.

  Valtor Thalasson looked at a younger guard, barely old enough to shave. "Do you know who I am?"

  The boy was the last to have stopped his arrows. Now he stammered. "Y-you're Crown Prince Valtor Thalasson. The... traitor."

  Valtor's smile widened. "Close. I'm Crown Prince Valtor Thalasson. The man who should have been King."

  He walked toward Kaelan.

  Kaelan backed away until he hit the wall. Nowhere left to run.

  "Little brother," Valtor said. His voice was almost gentle. "You've made such a mess."

  Kaelan tried to say something. But Valtor drove the broken bottle into his stomach.

  "KAELAN!" Isolde screamed behind me.

  Kaelan gasped. Blood bubbled from his lips. His hands clutched uselessly at the glass embedded in his gut, fingers slipping on wet crimson.

  Valtor didn't look away.

  He held his brother's gaze as Kaelan slid to his knees, then onto his back. Blood pooled beneath him, spreading across the white stone.

  Only then did Valtor turn.

  His eyes found Isolde on the battlefield. His expression was unreadable. Grief, fury, exhaustion. Maybe all three. Maybe none?

  The wind carried the salt smell of the ocean. Suddenly the city was silent except for the crackling of fires and the soft, wet sound of Kaelan's breathing.

  Dying, but not dead yet.

  Valtor Thalasson stared down at his sister, and I couldn't tell if we'd just been saved or if we'd traded one problem for something much, much worse.