The world erupted in light.

  A blinding flash, searing, absolute, swallowed everything in an instant. Shadows vanished, devoured by the sheer intensity, turning the world into a formless void of brilliant gold. For a single, breathless moment, it was as if time itself had paused, suspended in that radiant, crackling stillness.

  Then, just as suddenly, it was gone.

  I blinked hard, spots dancing in my vision. The stone beneath my feet hummed with residual energy, the very air around us charged, vibrating with unknown magic.

  Lola let out a startled noise, gripping the edge of the parapet as if steadying herself against something unseen. Her wide eyes darted between me and the horizon, her brows furrowed in confusion. “Lady… what in the hells was that?!”

  Before I could answer, Prince Relando spoke first, his voice smooth but carrying the weight of finality.

  “Too late,” he murmured, gaze locked on the horizon. “Your mother has finally begun summoning her demons.”

  I inhaled sharply, my pulse spiking, not in fear, but in something sharper, something thrumming with anticipation.

  And then, we saw it.

  Far in the sky, day’s travel away, an enormous circle began to materialize.

  It wasn’t some simple, glowing sigil. No, this was something demonic, something designed, a construct of impossible scale. Tens of thousands of golden runes shimmered into existence, meticulously arranged in layered, concentric rings, shifting, rotating in silent synchrony. They pulsed, humming in perfect unison with the very fabric of reality itself.

  And we could feel it.

  Magic, raw and unfathomable, surged through the air, a current so immense it pressed against the walls of the castle, against our very bones. It wasn’t just mana, it was power. A force bending the world itself to her will.

  The runes pulsed… once, twice. Before, in a single, breathtaking moment, they collapsed inward.

  All that impossible energy coalesced, folding down, down, down, a golden spiral hurtling toward the earth far beyond the limits of sight.

  We couldn’t see the impact. It was too far.

  But we heard it.

  The supersonic crack split through the air, not a sound so much as a force, an explosion that sent a shockwave racing outward, rattling the stones beneath us, thundering against the walls of the castle like the distant roar of an angry god.

  Then, silence.

  For a moment, everything was still.

  Then came the wind.

  A faint breeze, gentle, subtle, impossible, brushed against my skin, curling through my hair, rustling the loose papers in Lola’s arms. It was nothing compared to the scale of the event we had just witnessed.

  And yet, the mere fact that even this far away, we could feel it?

  That was terrifying.

  Lola swallowed hard, gripping her scrolls like they might anchor her to reality. “Lady…?” she asked again, voice quieter this time.

  I exhaled slowly, my gaze fixed on the distant horizon, where the golden glow of the ritual had already begun to fade.

  “Oh,” I murmured, a slow grin creeping onto my lips. “This is the army we’ll fight.”

  For a fraction of a second, the world just… paused.

  Not in a natural way, not like the eerie calm after a storm or the tense silence before a battle. No, this was something else. Something wrong. It was as if reality itself had lagged, and I was suddenly trapped inside my own body, unable to move, unable to even shift my gaze.

  Then, across my vision, a crisp message flickered into existence.

  I sighed internally. Of course.

  There was nothing I could do but wait. Nothing moved. Not the banners in the breeze, not the distant birds mid-flight, not even the subtle rise and fall of Lola’s breath.

  Just stillness.

  Then—

  Like a fast-forward button had been slammed, the world lurched back into motion.

  Everything surged around me in a blur; Prince Relando had shifted a dozen times in the span of a single heartbeat, adjusting his posture, tensing, relaxing, scanning his surroundings like a warrior caught in an ambush. Lola’s papers fluttered as if time had skipped, the quill she had been holding now resting on the floor.

  And then—

  I blinked.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  What.

  “This is… weird,” Lola muttered, adjusting her glasses with slow, deliberate movements, as if testing whether time was still functioning normally.

  I turned to Relando, only to find him frozen in place, his mouth hanging slightly open as he stared at the space between us, his golden eyes unfocused, reading something that wasn’t here.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, unable to hide my grin. “Too scared you lost your purpose?”

  His gaze snapped to me. “Pretender!” he all but yelled. “The level cap was increased from 25 to 75!”

  “It… wasn’t?” I asked, my brows furrowing as I tried to remember. But nothing came. The patch wasn’t normal. Nathan stepping in to personally announce a patch? No. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be done, would be done.

  A creeping unease settled in my chest.

  I had assumed that everything followed a structure, that the game had rules, that even the chaos had a limit. But if this wasn’t planned, if Nathan himself had to step in and justify it last minute…

  Maybe Riker was right. Maybe Rimelion was real. And we were just accessing it. It would explain a lot.

  But it was still terrifying.

  Prince Relando exhaled sharply, shaking his head, clearly trying to process the same realization. “Since forever,” he started, his voice tight with something close to disbelief, “the first five levels were easy. The next five? Harder, but still fairly manageable for anyone dedicated. Up to level twenty, only the best of the best could reach. And the level cap—” he paused, his fingers curling into fists, his entire posture stiffening.

  “The level cap was only for the ridiculously powerful.”

  His golden eyes locked onto mine, his expression unnervingly serious.

  “Everything is thrown into a whack with your mother meddling,” he continued, voice lower now. “She… she changed how the world itself works.”

  “That’s all well and good,” I said, rolling my shoulders, “but theorizing won’t help us.” I turned to Lola, who was still trying to juggle her scattered quills and papers. “My lovely assistant, when exactly should we head to the teleport?”

  Lola glanced around, hastily gathering her fallen quills before checking one of the many documents she had tucked under her arm. Her brows knit together, concern flickering across her face. “Lady, with all this…” she hesitated, then gave me a pointed look. “Shouldn’t we call an emergency meeting?”

  I sighed. Of course she’d suggest more meetings.

  “Let’s walk to the teleport,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “I already told you—it won’t work. But people are expecting it to, and they’re going to panic when they realize they can’t just flee the impending rebellion.” I exhaled, casting a glance at Relando. “Come too, Prince. I think—”

  “Let me go back.”

  I blinked, caught off guard.

  He was serious.

  His golden eyes held no hesitation, no doubt, just a quiet certainty. I swallowed. “Are you sure? Without a body—”

  “Yes.”

  He dismissed my concerns before I could even voice them properly and, without another word, sat down on the cold stone floor. Just like that. I watched him carefully as he closed his eyes, his expression perfectly at ease, as if waiting for nothing more than the passing of a gentle breeze. There was no fear. No tension.

  “Very well,” I murmured, resigning myself. I reached for my amulet, fingers brushing against the cool metal. With a pulse of light, he was gone.

  Lola blinked rapidly, caught between confusion and concern. “Lady?”

  I waved a hand as I tucked the amulet back beneath my collar. “He’s a spirit,” I said simply. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I turned on my heel, already heading toward the stairs.

  “Now,” I continued, my voice firm. “We have so much work to do.”

  As we walked through the fort, the entire place was a blur of motion, soldiers, officers, and messengers all rushing somewhere, moving with the urgency of people who had somewhere to be, even if they weren’t entirely sure why.

  Ah, military efficiency.

  Despite the storm of movement, only a handful of people paused long enough to throw quick, breathless questions at us, answered by Lola. Most were too focused on their own objectives to care that I was passing through. Fine by me.

  We exited the fortress and made our way toward the largest tent in the encampment, a huge structure, towering as high as the Sovereign of Ice, its reinforced canvas stretched so wide it could easily house a small army inside.

  I strolled forward as if it belonged to me. I grinned, because in a way it did. The moment we stepped inside, a wall of chaos hit us.

  Hundreds of people, officers, strategists, soldiers, were everywhere, packed so tightly that the very air felt charged with confusion. The scent of sweat, ink, and magic-laced parchment clung thickly to the fabric walls. Shouting voices layered over one another. Some barked commands. Others fired off questions that had no answers.

  Near the center of the anarchy, a handful of robed mages were arguing vehemently, over some obscure piece of magical theory, their gestures desperate.

  And at the heart of it all?

  The portal.

  A towering arch of cold, silvery metal gleamed beneath the flickering torchlight. Runes coiled across its surface like veins of liquid moonlight, their soft glow pulsing at uneven intervals, so unstable. The entire structure thrummed with power, a faint hum filling the space, as if it were trying to activate, trying to do something, but couldn’t quite break through.

  People were gathered around it, arguing, recalibrating, pressing hands against the runes in vain attempts to stabilize the magic.

  But the portal, like the rest of the world, had changed.

  And it wasn’t listening.

  I let out a slow, amused breath, scanning the mess before me before striding toward the glowing circle at the heart of the chaos. “Nonsense! We need to activate it. You saw the lights.”

  I knew that voice.

  The imperial attaché.

  A bureaucrat down to his marrow, clinging to procedure as if it could hold back the storm that was rapidly consuming his carefully ordered world. And if he was here? That meant he was where the more capable minds had gathered, desperately trying to impose logic on something far beyond it.

  I stepped closer, weaving through the shifting bodies, catching glimpses of the man himself.

  He stood stiffly, dressed in formal imperial attire that looked painfully out of place among the rugged soldiers and frantic mages. His thinning hair was neatly combed back, his posture by the book despite the sweat beading at his temple. “If not—” he started, his tone measured, but before he could continue—

  “No.” A defeated voice rejected the idea. One of the robed mages, a man with ink-stained fingers and exhaustion carved into the lines of his face, shook his head, his shoulders slumped as if the weight of reality had finally crushed him. “Magic doesn’t work,” he muttered. “I’m useless.”

  There was a finality to his words, the kind of resignation that came from watching everything you’ve built your life around crumble before your eyes. “I dedicated my career—”

  “Without a teleporter, there is no career,” the attaché pointed out, his voice still maddeningly calm. Not angry. Not urgent. Just a simple fact.

  The mage let out a strangled noise, half gasp, half disbelieving laugh, and then, without warning, started laughing outright. A broken, manic sound.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  The others: mages, officers, people who had no contingency for this level of catastrophe; began laughing too.

  Not because anything was funny. But because panic had finally caught up with them.