Acting Mayor Varlos Regan, a middle-aged man with muscular body and thick mustache, lounged on a velvet-cushioned chair in the lord’s office of the lord’s mansion, the Brightmoon Mansion, swirling a goblet of expensive red wine in one hand while admiring the pristine white vase he’d recently acquired. His gaze turned toward the crest bearing the sigil of a red dragon exhaling fire at the wall — the emblem of the Merlin family. They were the ones responsible for lifting him out of the gutter and placing him atop the city’s highest seat of power.

  Just a few months ago, he had been a lowly treasury scribe working under the Brightmoon House. He had always dreamed of someday ascending into nobility. And when the opportunity came, he seized it without hesitation. Truly, betrayal had paid him handsomely. When the Merlins marched into the city, he — along with a handful of others — had been among the first to open the gates from within. Now, with the Brightmoon bloodline all but eradicated and no rivals in sight, he lived like a king.

  To begin with, Oleg had been the one who was slated to receive this position. However, ever since Oleg’s unexplained disappearance, the Merlins had named Varlos acting mayor until the region could be fully secured.

  “That fool,” Varlos muttered with a smug grin. “Still, I should thank him for the opportunity.”

  He took another slow sip, savoring the richness of the wine, and exhaled contentedly through his nose. But then, a troubling thought crept into his mind.

  “Still no word from the Merlin family’s expedition force, huh…” he muttered to himself, setting the goblet down. The Merlin family had dispatched an entire army to crush that rogue academy hidden deep in the Thornwood Forest — fourteen dirigibles, a full battalion of mercenaries, and nearly two dozen Magi. A force of that size should’ve left nothing behind but scorched ground and ghostly screams.

  But there had been no words, no reports, no returning troops. Not even a single messenger. It was as if they had vanished from the face of the earth.

  “Maybe they’re just taking their sweet time cleaning up. That’s probably it,” Varlos theorized, brushing off his unease with a casual wave. After all, the longer the Merlin family stayed preoccupied elsewhere, the longer he could enjoy his position.

  Even though the silence gnawed at him in a distant corner of his mind, the wine drowned it. The people still bowed when he walked the streets, and the city guards still snapped to attention when he passed. That was all that mattered.

  He rose from his chair, his robe dragging along the marble floor as he strolled to the large balcony overlooking the central courtyard. His lips curved in satisfaction as he surveyed his domain — Brightmoon City, once ruled by the weak-willed Brightmoon House, now under his thumb.

  Then, as he turned his gaze upward at the darkened sky, he saw them. Dots. Hundreds of them.

  At first, he thought it was some kind of illusion or perhaps birds migrating. Maybe even falling stars… But they grew larger quickly and seemed to be descending straight toward his location and some parts of the city.

  “What... the hell is that?” he whispered, leaning forward and squinting his eyes.

  The dots became shapes. Human shapes. Cloaked and robed figures plummeting from the skies like meteors, some casting spells mid-air to slow their fall, others spreading membraned suits beneath their arms and legs as they glided down like dark wings slicing the wind.

  Panic surged through Varlos’s gut.

  “GUARDS! Get up here, now! Sound the alarm!” he roared, spinning on his heel.

  The guards nearby were immediately alerted and rushed to protect their master. Some rang the bells to alert the rest of the garrison. But it was too late.

  The first figure landed with a crash of light and thunder on the far end of the balcony, his boots leaving cracks in the stone.

  “Touch down and right on the mark! Hell yeah!” he shouted with glee.

  Two more followed, rolling into a crouch before springing forward. The city guards who had scrambled to intercept were blasted back by concussive bursts of mana. “Aargh!”

  “Muscular body and thick mustache inside the mansion. That must be the acting mayor! Catch him!”

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  “Aaah! My merit points!”

  The two robed figures charged at him like madmen.

  Varlos staggered backward, his mouth agape. “You dare break into the mayoral estate?! I am the appointed representative of the Merlins! Do you have any idea who I am?!”

  One of them rushed forward and grabbed him by the front of his garment, lifting him off his feet like a sack of grain. Varlos was a pretty tall man, but he was being lifted effortlessly by someone smaller than him… It was a rather ridiculous sight.

  “You’re the scum who betrayed the Brightmoon House,” the mage snapped. “How dare you make our precious Lady Lillie cry? As one of Lillie’s knights, I will punish you!”

  “What are you talking about?! Unhand me, you bastard! When the Merlins return, they’ll—”

  “Yada, yada, yada. These pompous NPCs all say the same thing. Just bash his head and shut him up.”

  In a blink, the butt of a staff slammed into his temple before he could finish. His vision erupted in stars, the world spun, and his knees gave out as more of the cloaked intruders stormed in around him.

  Within seconds, the entire city was under siege. City guards were disarmed, pinned down, or swiftly subdued with non-lethal force. One by one, key buildings across Brightmoon City were overtaken by players who had landed in precise formations according to Satellite’s plan.

  The occupying forces wasted no time. Strategic locations — the gates, the barracks, the central plaza — were secured with flawless efficiency. Specialized squads swept into supply depots, while support teams deployed wide-area calming spells to ease civilian unrest. Meanwhile, the diplomacy units moved through the merchant district and administrative quarters, showing the Sanctum’s banners and presenting the legitimacy of Lillie arc Brightmoon’s claim to the city.

  Although the claimant herself had not yet appeared, there was little resistance to the occupation. These players were all elite combatants, most of them already at the second stage of Initiate Attunement. Ordinary guards stood no chance, and even the few Ki-Warriors stationed in the city couldn’t do anything besides getting blown away and knocked out.

  In truth, Brightmoon City almost seemed relieved. Whispers turned to cheers as news of the acting mayor’s capture spread. The people remembered the Brightmoon House, and though time had passed, the generosity of the former lord still lingered. With the traitor brought low and the banners of a new force raised high, a new era had arrived.

  As the one who oversaw all of this, Satellite couldn’t help but admire his own brilliant mind. Ever since he joined the game, he had immediately latched onto the leg of the most influential player, Auralise. After all, he knew that riding her coattails was the fastest path to success and wealth. But beneath it all, he harbored his own ambitions.

  At this moment, he monitored his guild master, Auralise, striding confidently through the cobbled streets, flanked by Dominique and several other guild members. With her charisma and connections, she quickly secured the cooperation of the merchants. Well, gold spoke louder than fear.

  Meanwhile, the rats in the slums — the street kids, beggars, and forgotten folk — were moving like shadows. They uncovered rogue Merlin loyalists hiding in basements or disguised as traders and quietly rounded them up. Or at least, that was the report Satellite had received from Thunder.

  The others, too, were diligently fulfilling their roles and achieving their objectives.

  Back at the central plaza, Satellite coordinated everything like a strategist. Holographic maps hovered in the air above his Shadowlink Mark, tracking each squad’s progress across the city.

  “Brightmoon City is officially ours,” he said. “We’ll begin transitioning into the civilian stabilization phase. Phase two complete.”

  From the skies above, the dirigibles slowly circled the city. The Sanctum’s banners flew atop towers and flagpoles, flapping proudly in the wind. In just under an hour, Brightmoon City had been turned over without a single building being burned.

  The rocky alcove was deathly still.

  Completely unaware of what was unfolding back in Brightmoon City, Victor sat cross-legged atop the flat boulder in the center of the subterranean lake, shrouded in overlapping concealment and distortion barriers. The rich, ambient mana swirled around him like intangible mist, saturated with Cosmo and Chrono elemental particles dense enough to tingle the skin. This was none other than the secluded sanctuary deep in the wildlands where he had slain Fernando and Wyne — a paradise for any Magus to practice their meditation technique.

  He slowly exhaled, eyes half-lidded, his senses fully immersed in the flow of infused mana coursing through every vein and circuit within his body. His seven sigils pulsed in perfect harmony, forming a complete array — head, chest, limbs — like a celestial configuration of constellations waiting to align.

  He was ready.

  Carefully, Victor retrieved the small crystal vial — the final half of the mysterious elixir he had acquired from the auction at the Magus market. The deep purple liquid within shimmered like melted starlight, holding the essence of an age long forgotten. He uncorked it, letting the scent of distilled temporal essence fill the air.

  One sip. That was all he needed.

  As the liquid touched his tongue, time itself seemed to stretch thin. The surrounding cavern slowed, or rather, Victor’s perception accelerated. He could see each droplet of water falling from the ceiling as if suspended in midair, the ripples on the lake expanding like blooming flowers frozen at the peak of their flourish. The elixir struck his core like a bolt of lightning.

  Victor gritted his teeth and focused his mind as his body trembled from the sudden influx of Cosmo and Chrono elemental energy. The seven sigils within him quivered, one after another, resonating like bells struck in perfect harmony. He extended his consciousness inward, plunging deep into the sea of his consciousness.

  At the center of his being, space and time collided. His mana reserves expanded. Threads of Cosmo and Chrono energy intertwined into a flawless spiral, coalescing into the seed of a new core that would grant him mastery over spacetime on an entirely new scale.

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