Silica was a professional gamer.
Not just any gamer, she was a five-time consecutive champion of the Female E-Sports World Championship.
And not in a single genre, either.
She and her team had dominated the world stage in MOBA, FPS, and battle royale circuits alike.
But that was where their glory ended.
In the mixed tournaments, the ones where the top male players dominated, Silica never even made it past qualifiers.
She could outperform two or three male players by sheer mechanical skill. But the rest of her team couldn’t keep up, not against the best.
They crushed other all-female teams, but on the mixed field, they were treated like side acts. Like underdogs no one bet on.
Even when they played well, the only commentary they got was: “Nice try for a girl.”
Silica hated it.
Hated how people called the women's teams “decorative.”
Hated how the internet sneered every time a girl tried to aim for the same top shelf as the guys.
After their most recent loss streak on the mixed global stage, she’d taken a break.
She just needed to breathe.
That’s when she stumbled on Dream Land Online.
A fantasy MMO, currently in beta.
She’d read a little fantasy here and there, light novels, mostly. And in every one of them, humans were always the weakest, powerless race.
But the protagonists were almost always human.
And they always rose.
So she picked the Human race without hesitation.
Not because it was strong, but because it wasn’t.
Because it reminded her how weak she felt right now… and how badly she wanted to claw her way back up.
Then… Like the others, she was stunned by how real the game looked.
The visuals weren’t just good.
They were alive.
The town of Stellar shimmered under golden morning light. Players and NPCs mingled on cobbled streets, and the world around her felt more physical than anything she’d touched in other games.
But nothing prepared her for the parade.
She’d been exploring the edge of the plaza when the horns began.
At first, she thought it was some in-game event. Maybe a festival or cutscene. But what unfolded wasn’t just content.
It was a message for her.
Dozens of female knights, clad in sleek silver combat dresses, marched through the streets. Their boots struck the stone in unison, their white cloaks trailing behind like wings carved from sunlight.
They weren’t background NPCs.
They weren’t eye candy.
They were heroes.
At the front of the columns walked three women in flowing white robes, mages, their staves glowing with arcane symbols, casting silent glimmers into the air with every step.
And leading them all…
A young knight girl.
Younger than Silica.
A polished sword at her waist, silver hair glowing in the sun, and eyes as calm as the winter sky.
Not a single man among them.
In this post-apocalyptic world, the ones holding the line were women.
Silica didn’t even realize she was following until the crowd thickened and she was swept along in the flow.
The parade led them to a wide, battle-scarred plaza. Buildings half-destroyed formed jagged edges around it like broken teeth. At the center stood a raised marble stage.
And upon it… was her, the silver-haired leader.
The knights and mages formed a protective circle around the platform. In unison, they drew their swords and staves, and pressed the tips to the ground like ceremonial anchors. They formed a wall, not of aggression, but of reverence. Like silent guardians.
Silica moved closer, curious.
She tried to step closer, but about three strides from the knights, her body halted against an invisible barrier. Probably a system boundary.
Silica stood at the edge, front-most view, shoulder to shoulder with strangers, all staring up at the girl on the platform.
The moment the girl stepped forward on the stage, the crowd went silent.
Even the wind seemed to pause.
……
The girl, barely reached seventeen, stood tall. Her silver hair shimmered beneath the sunlight, her blue eyes calm but resolute. She didn’t raise her sword. She didn’t shout.
She simply spoke.
And her voice echoed, not just through the plaza, but across both Stellar and Selini, broadcast through dozens of glowing screen projections floating above rooftops and plaza walls.
Her words reached over a hundred of thousands.
“Yesterday… the world changed.”
The crowd stilled.
Silica felt her pulse throb. She didn’t even know what she was bracing for.
“The monsters didn’t come with warnings.”
She paused. Let the silence stretch.
“No omens.”
“No signs.”
“Just—”
Her voice caught for a moment.
“The air split.”
“Flames devoured the ground.”
“The sky itself turned dark.”
Then, softer, she continued…
“The next…”
“Everything fell into chaos.”
A low murmur rippled through the crowd. NPCs bowed their heads. Some clutched each other’s hands.
“And in that chaos, Stelluna stood on the brink of ruin.”
“We could not have held the line alone.”
“Not without the help of mercenaries.”
“And not without the townsfolk, who chose to cooperate… not cower.”
Her voice did not waver, but her hand tightened around the edge of the podium.
“Not a single townsfolk died.”
“But fifty-three mercenaries gave their lives to hold that line.”
“Fifty-three.”
“That… is the price.”
“It seems a small number compared to the scale of the catastrophe.”
“But they did not fall nameless.”
“They fell as heroes.”
The screen projection shimmered as a second image briefly overlaid the stage, a soft sketch-like image of rows of grave markers under moonlight.
“Stelluna has ordered the construction of a new cemetery.”
“Not behind our gates, but in the heart of Stelluna.”
“So that no one forgets them.”
A hush spread through the plaza.
Near the front, a middle-aged woman clutched her shawl tighter around her shoulders, her lips trembling as tears welled in her eyes. A boy, barely ten, lowered his head beside her, hands clenched at his sides.
An elderly man removed his hat and held it over his heart, murmuring a prayer under his breath.
One mercenary’s wife buried her face into her hands, shoulders shaking silently. A younger girl beside her, maybe a sister, maybe a daughter, reached out and held her without a word.
Silica stood still, heart tightening. She had seen kill counts in games. Casualties in patch notes.
But this was different.
She felt their emotions.
This was grief.
The real one.
The kind where your loved ones didn't respawn.
“And their families… will never lack anything again for their entire life.”
“I promise that.”
“As long as the Stelluna name exists.”
Gasps spread across the crowd.
Silica’s throat tightened. She didn’t know these mercenaries, but the weight of that vow was impossible to miss.
The girl inhaled softly, eyes sweeping the sea of faces.
“And today, we welcome another kind of courage.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“One hundred strangers… from another world.”
The players stirred. Silica’s breath caught.
“You may not know our past.”
“You may not yet understand our despair.”
“But I ask you… no—”
“I beg you…”
Her hand touched her heart.
“Please help us rebuild this world.”
“Work together, with our mercenaries, our smiths, our healers, our children.”
“Not as invaders.”
“Not as tourists.”
“But as people.”
“As a family.”
“As guardians of a second home.”
Silica stared, unblinking. So did the NPC beside her, an old carpenter, tears brimming in his eyes.
The girl’s expression shifted, this time, more personal.
“There are… rumors. I have heard them.”
“Some say I purchased dozens of female slaves. That I hoarded them in silence.”
A wave of tension crackled through the crowd.
“It is true.”
“I bought them all.”
“But not to enslave them.”
“Not to use them.”
She stepped back from the podium and raised her arm.
At the base of the stage, dozens of women in silver stood shoulder to shoulder, each one once a slave. Now armored, and their heads held high.
“I freed them.”
“They are not my tools.”
“They are my sisters-in-arms.”
The crowd was still, silence fell.
“Some of you may ask, why only women?”
“Because we are still healing.”
“Two months ago, Stelluna was torn apart by civil war. By betrayal from men. And I admitted it.”
“For us Stelluna…”
Her voice softened, a note of pain slipping through.
“…it’s still too soon to stand beside the ones who broke us.”
Silica swallowed hard.
This wasn’t a recruitment speech.
This was a confession.
“I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t pretend to.”
“But I know what I can protect right now.”
“And I know who I can trust to help me protect it.”
She turned again, this time facing the ring of knights and mages who stood silently around the stage, her women, her comrades, her future.
Her voice dropped lower. Steeled not in wrath, but in memory.
“A battalion of women.”
Her words carried by the wind.
“Not forged from hatred of men…”
“But from the pain of being abandoned by the world.”
A ripple passed through the assembled knights. Some straightened. Some bowed their heads. One quietly placed a hand to her chest.
“We will reclaim what was lost.”
“We will protect the broken corners of this world.”
Her eyes scanned the crowd, players, NPCs, mercenaries, townsfolk.
She wasn’t just speaking to the stage.
She was speaking to the world.
“And together…”
“We will rebuild the world.”
“Because we are…”
Her voice was raised as she lifted her arm skyward.
“The dawn… of the nightmare.”
Her hand curled into a fist as the silver sun glinted off her armor.
“The Starlace Order.”
At that moment, all around the plaza, the knights answered.
Not with words, but with movement.
A synchronized, thunderous clang, as they brought their swords and staves down, striking the stone in unison.
Silica felt the vibration through her boots.
A jolt, like a heartbeat, running up her spine.
Without warning, the projection screens around the plaza shimmered, one by one, flashing with a flare of blue light. The crowd stilled.
Then, a rush of sound tore through the air like the lift of a theater curtain.
BOOM!
A deep drumbeat hit like a heartbeat through the plaza. Thunderous, slow, and rising.
Then, the footage began.
……
The Stelluna crest shimmered into view, etched in light, encased in icy silver and blue, before shattering like glass, revealing the battlefield beyond.
The screen cut to a wide shot:
The Courtyard of Stelluna. Explosions showed in the background. The wind howled. Distant flames flickered across the ridge. But in the center of that chaos…
Lyra Stelluna.
She stood tall in the middle of a battered war table, her golden hair tied back in a high twist, her figure framed by fluttering banners and smoke-veiled light.
The camera tightened.
One hand held a quill, its tip racing across a parchment map. Her movements were impossibly fast, drawing symbols and arrows, marking flanks and fallback points with razor-like accuracy.
Her other hand held a communication crystal, its crystal screen pulsing with incoming messages.
Her eyes, sharp as glacial steel, flicked between the quill and the sky, between signals and strategy. Her lips moved with silent urgency, but her face remained calm.
The strings joined the percussion, a slow orchestral swell building behind her as the war escalated beyond the screen.
The scene transitioned.
Cryssa Stelluna.
The moment bursts onto the screen with a thunderclap of steel and ice.
The camera followed her mid-charge, silver hair lashing behind her like a comet trail, eyes glowing with frosted cold. One hand clutched her glowing blade, the other held a communication crystal close to her mouth.
She stands alone at the frontline, surrounded by ogres twice her size, their tusks snarling, clubs raised high.
But she doesn’t back down.
She doesn’t pause.
She charges.
Her sword flares to life, wreathed in spiraling light-blue energy. Ice surges down the blade like a living frost.
The music swells into a sharp rhythm, drums hammering like war-horns as Cryssa slashes left, her blade tearing through an ogre’s arm like butter. The beast howls, but before it can fall, she’s already spun to her right.
Slash!
The music sharpened, drums pounding like war-horns as she barked into the crystal.
Then, she struck.
Another ogre’s chest bursts into a glowing X of frost.
CRACK!
The ice erupts outward, freezing its body mid-roar.
Slash. Step. Parry. Giving orders. Slash again.
She dances between monsters like a storm given form. Her footwork light. Her blade was relentless. Her expression was calm, cold, and resolute.
She pivots again. Another. Then another.
She was like a blizzard given flesh, dancing through beasts while issuing cold, clipped orders through the crystal.
Her silver hair whips behind her in streaks of moonlight. Frost trails in every step she takes.
Even surrounded, she was both a commander for the allies and a weapon towards the monsters.
The camera rises as she carves her way forward, a lone figure cleaving through chaos, like a shard of winter cutting through the heart of war.
The music rises with her.
Then the scene changed.
Her mages, three women in robes, chanting in formation. Their staves gleamed, their hands danced, summoning cascading icicles that shot down from the sky like crystalline spears. Lower-ranked spells, clearly, but rendered in such detail, ribbons of frost followed their fingertips, light blooming from their staves like divine flares.
The projectiles struck with timed precision, every impact was both beautiful and brutal. Explosions of frost lighting the battlefield in sync with the soundtrack’s rising tempo.
The scene transitioned again.
The knights of Stelluna.
They moved like silver waves through the chaos. Each sword pulsed with crystalline energy, every strike creating trails of ice that splintered across the ground, freezing anything they touched. Monster limbs flew with frozen plumes.
The screen followed a squad of them, shielding injured mercenaries. One knight carried a man twice her size across her back. Another parried blows with her off-hand while helping a townswoman limp toward safety. Another knight ran through the smoke, slashing down monsters with one hand, while a crying child clung to her back.
The music slowed, a moment of solemn beauty, and light snowfall began to fall on-screen, even though no spell was cast.
Then, the camera panned slowly.
A lone figure in a bloody battlefield.
The elf knight.
Her knees buckled. She gritted her teeth. Her sword tip dug into the earth, acting as her anchor. One hand gripping the hilt of her blade as if clinging to breath itself.
Blood soaked her armor.
Her body trembled.
The screen zoomed in. Her green hair clinging to her face, her mouth whispering something unheard beneath the rising wind.
The score built to a quiet crescendo, violins trembling like breath.
Then…
A sudden pulse like a heartbeat through the earth.
Wind and ice aura erupted from her chest like a dying star rekindled, not as an attack, but as a desperate answer to the world breaking around her.
She bent forward, almost kneeling, not in defeat, but in devotion.
Like a final vow.
Her sword glowed, green and blue intertwining, magic coalescing like a storm about to burst.
Her eyes closed.
A whisper of resolve crossed her lips.
Then, she slashed.
One final arc.
The screen cut wide to follow it. An enormous, glowing crescent of fused wind and ice that flew like a divine judgment through the enemy ranks.
BAAANNGGG!!!
Everything detonated.
Frozen viscera and gore rained down in slow motion, like shards of painted glass. Blood suspended midair like scattered rubies encased in crystal. The color palette danced between beauty and brutality.
Then the screen went black.
Silence again.
One beat. Then two.
And finally…
The Stelluna crest returned, glowing and bold, carved in light.
Beneath it, carved in glowing frost and gold:
STARLACE ORDER
We rose where the dream fell.
The music faded on a final piano note, delicate as falling snow.
……
The screen dimmed.
The final image of Stelluna crest and text STARLACE ORDER lingered.
They burned themselves into the retinas of every soul who witnessed it.
And then… silence.
Not a whisper. Not a breath.
The projection floated in the air above the plaza, casting cold blue light over thousands of faces. Their eyes widened, mouths parted.
For the natives of Oneiria, it was the first time they had ever seen anything like it.
Moving pictures, digital sound, and music.
To them, it was divine.
Like a celestial battle, captured by gods and gifted to mortals.
They stared at the screen as if afraid blinking would make it vanish.
Even the children didn’t move.
Even the guards didn’t shift their spears.
Even the wind seemed to stop.
And for the players, it wasn’t disbelief, it was disorientation.
Silica stood among them, her hand half-lifted to her mouth, eyes reflecting the pale-blue aftermath of the final slash in that video.
Her lips parted, barely more than a whisper.
“…That wasn’t CG.”
It wasn’t a cinematic. It wasn’t rendered. It wasn’t even staged.
It felt real.
As if the cameramen themselves captured the battlefield amidst the chaos.
She didn’t even realize she was holding her breath until it hit her lungs again.
Around her, other players were stunned. Some hadn’t moved in minutes. A streamer forgot to reply to the chats as he just stared at the air like it would answer them.
And then…
Clap.
One person clapped.
Then another.
Then another.
Then the plaza erupted.
Not just with applause, but with roars.
“STELLUNA!”
“STELLUNA!!”
The townsfolk raised their fists and shouted with tears in their eyes.
“STARLACE ORDER!”
“STARLACE ORDER!!”
Voices rang out, not just in the plaza, but across the balconies above, down every stone street and echoing alley.
Even from the rooftops.
“STARLACE! STARLACE!”
“STELLUNA PROTECTS US!!”
People wept.
Strangers embraced.
Knights pounded their swords against the stone in unison, ringing like ceremonial drums.
The cry carried beyond the plaza, spreading into Stellar, rippling through the town like a tidal wave of sound.
And in Selini, a moment later, the exact same cheer exploded as projection screens repeated the footage and speech for all to see.
The two towns, once divided by fear and rubble, now shouted the same names in the same breath.
Silica watched it all… and was still stunned.
Still barely breathing.
The crowd swelled with sound, and she realized…
This is her new home.
Not because it was peaceful.
But because, for the first time, women didn’t have to climb over excuses to reach the top.
No one “booed” when a girl took the lead.
No one treated girls like a novelty, a mascot, or a token.
No smug comments about “good aim for a girl.”
No forced smiles from sponsors who only cared about marketability.
Here, women weren’t sidekicks or support roles.
They were the front line.
They didn’t just fight back monsters.
They owned the battlefield.
Silica opened her game platform’s group chat with a flick.
Typed a message to her team.
「I’m moving on. If any of you want to climb with me again, play Dream Land. If not, thanks for the games.」
She hit send without hesitation.
Then closed her interface and looked back at the projection screen as it faded into the Starlace Order glowing text.
Her gamer instinct sparked.
This game wasn’t just different.
It was her destiny.
The next big e-sports battleground.
Her lips curved into a grin.
“This time… we will be the ones standing above.”
