I straightened, a grin splitting my face despite the storm raging inside me. My voice echoed through the dome, carried to the heavens.

  “I’m taking the city. I declare war.”

  The circles spun.

  At first, it was subtle… a slow rotation, like gears turning after centuries of rust.

  Then faster.

  Faster.

  Each demonic rune flared as the circles gained speed, blurring into rings of molten light. The sound came next, low and grinding, a deep vibration that shook the very marrow of my bones.

  Mana poured from the Binding Stone in rivers, in avalanches, in tsunamis of raw power. The air thickened with it, pressing down on us like a collapsing sky. My lungs fought for breath as though I were trying to inhale lightning. Every hair on my arms stood on end. The cobblestones cracked beneath our feet, glowing veins crawling through them as the spellwork demanded more and more fuel.

  Even the grandmasters faltered.

  The Black Dragon master stood frozen. His dark hair whipped wildly in the mana storm, eyes wide, pupils dilated like he was staring at a god made manifest. “Demon magic…” His voice was hushed, reverent, drunk on the sight. He took a half-step forward, lips parting, his voice cracking for the first time. “T-Tell me!”

  But before he could demand more, a jeweled hand slapped his chest. The Purple Dragon master, face twisted in disdain, stopped him cold. “What a bold declaration, Queen,” he sneered at me. His teeth gleamed in the burning light. “What is your plan?”

  The White Dragon master scoffed, cutting the moment short. His boot hit the stone with a resounding crack as he strode forward, the eternal sneer etched deeper across his face.

  And then—

  The world stopped.

  Literally.

  One second the wind was tearing at my cloak, the runes were spinning, the Binding Stone bleeding power. The next… stillness. The banners froze mid-flap. The embers from shattered glass hung motionless in the air, glinting like fireflies caught in resin. Even the grandmasters, expressions half-formed, stood in sculpted silence.

  “What’s going on?” I tried to say, but no sound left my lips. I couldn’t move.

  Then, out of nowhere, Cloudy arrived.

  A roiling storm cloud puffed into existence around my head, fat and dark, with two ridiculous cartoonish eyes peering out of the vapor. Not a fan this one. Its voice was booming and chirpy at once. “Bold Queen! You didn’t know about time dilation?”

  “No?” I didn’t say… but apparently thoughts counted, because the cloud heard me anyway.

  It zipped around my frozen form, trailing little sparks of static as it circled my head. “Ahhh, you connected into the Demon Realm of Pain! The moment my realm touched theirs, you created… a weird connection. Congratulations, it’s broken!” The eyes blinked at me. “So, the result: time goes sideways. It can last anywhere from a few hours to… a few days.”

  My stomach dropped.

  “The time is flowing differently there,” the cloud went on cheerfully, “and now it’s syncing with my realm. So you’re living on demon time. Good job, The Exploiter.”

  Before I could scream, or at least try, the cloud popped like a soap bubble.

  Gone.

  “Cloudy!” I tried to shout. Nothing moved. Nothing worked. My eyes were locked on the frozen White Grandmaster mid-scoff, and all I could do was silently curse him. “What do you mean I’ll be like this? How long?!” The silence pressed in harder. Panic curled in my gut. “At least… at least give me my class!”

  The cloud poofed back into being, upside-down this time, dangling its eyes at me. “Your class? What class?”

  “You know which one,” I thought furiously. If I had lips, I’d be snarling.

  “Are you sure?” Cloudy tilted its cloudy mass as if cocking its head. “It’s a big decision. Very big! Like, big big.”

  “I prefer the more… serious version of you. This hyperactive yuki-like version is not much to my liking. Hit me.”

  The cloud burst with a tiny thunderclap.

  With that, a list of… gods, at least two thousand skills spilled open in front of me like a cosmic menu. Lines of glowing text stacked over one another, stretching up into infinity, flickering slightly as if the system itself was straining under the weight.

  Thankfully, I could control it with my mind, scrolling with just a flick of focus. Otherwise, I’d be here finger-swiping for the next decade. Well, I couldn’t move.

  I would be stuck staring at the first one…

  My original plan had been simple; grab two obvious, useful skills I knew about and move on. Efficiency, right? But now? With time frozen and Cloudy’s nonsense buying me hours, maybe there were hidden gems tucked away in the mess.

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  I didn’t know how long I scrolled… minutes, hours? Demon time was weird; but it was enlightening. I recognized maybe half of the skills, but the other half… oh boy. Some of them were straight-busted.

  Like this one:

  I bit my lip. Suppress enemy skills? For two seconds, sure, but that’s a lifetime in combat. With one well-timed Crownbreaker and even the cockiest mage was just a guy in a robe for a moment.

  Tempting.

  Of course, not every option screamed “battle queen.”

  I stared at it. A dance skill. A literal dance skill. Did I want to pirouette my way to victory? Maybe useful in some political setting, sure, but in a fight? If the grandmasters stopped mid-duel to tango with me, I’d eat my own sscarf.

  After what felt like hours of scrolling, my eyes burned, and my head was pounding with choice overload. I finally called out, “Cloudy, I’d like to know something.”

  The puffball appeared instantly, materializing near the frozen White Grandmaster. This time he wasn’t just a cloud; he had little storm eyes and was zipping around like a hyperactive thunderhead. Tiny lightning bolts zapped harmlessly at White’s motionless robe.

  “What is’t thou dost yearn to ken?” the cloud intoned, voice suddenly deep and Shakespearean.

  If I could’ve, I’d have smacked him out of the sky. “Are you… having fun?”

  “Ever dost thou reap that which thou dost crave, O guileless queen,” Cloudy droned, looping lazy circles around me. “Thou didst beseech me to be grave and sage; lo, thus I am become.” I wanted to roll my eyes but couldn’t. I was a prisoner in my own body, forced to endure his cosplay. “Counsel I may not bestow, for the choice resteth solely upon thine own self.”

  “Just you wait,” I muttered in my head. “I’ll exploit something just to punish you!”

  The cloud’s eyes squinted in mock solemnity. “To chastise me availeth naught, for in so doing thou smitest but thine own self, O queen unwise.”

  “Fine.” My patience was threadbare. “I just want to know; this skill. [Crown of Winter]. The heck, Cloudy?”

  That stopped him. For once, he didn’t immediately answer with pompous poetry. He froze in place, cartoon eyes narrowing. “Oh. You noticed.”

  “Yes,” I snapped. “So how, why, can I even pick this?”

  Cloudy drifted closer, voice lower now, almost serious. “Thy link to the Sovereign of Ice… thou draw upon their power. In so doing, thou art made ready to become the next Sovereign of Ice, whilst aiding the present one in their rise toward godhood.”

  That made me blink. Hard.

  “Ice Sovereign?” I thought. “Me replacing… Ice Sovereign?! Okay not now, but eventually? Good magic, right?” Cloudy’s eyes closed, silent. I skimmed the description again, my pulse quickening. “It’ll make my magic more potent…”

  Still nothing from the puffball. Which meant I was right. “Damn,” I muttered to myself. “Okay. I'll pick that as my combat. Non-combat always wanted that one.”

  The system flared.

  “Cool, cool. Now, for my twenty-five level class—”

  “I may not grant thee this, O Queen,” Cloudy boomed, swooping down until his ridiculous cartoon eyes were level with mine. His storm-body crackled faintly, arcs of lightning playing through his vapor. “The power thou wieldest is not thine own; it is but lent, and so it changeth not thy soul.” He circled lazily, a halo of thunder over my frozen body. “So then, O Queen, contend with that which is thine own, not with that which thou canst not claim.”

  If I’d had control of my face, I’d have been glaring daggers. “Even those boosted could temporarily pick a class! This is unfair!”

  Cloudy zapped me with a tiny bolt of lightning, more annoying than painful. “What is deemed fair, and what permitted, lieth not in thy decree. It is mine to ordain, for I am the Sovereign of Laws.”

  The pronouncement rang like thunder, echoing in my head long after his cloudy shape popped out of existence.

  Silence crashed back down.

  I couldn’t even close my eyes. Couldn’t look away. Rimelion meditation? Impossible… I needed to shut the world out for that. Earth meditation? Even worse; try finding inner calm when the White Grandmaster’s face was frozen in eternal mid-scoff nearby. I could see every wrinkle, every strand of his too-perfect hair. Every detail carved into my retinas. I hated him more by the second.

  So I thought.

  And thought.

  I ran the plan over and over in my head, dissecting every stage, every contingency. It was all I could do. My mind became a loop: Lola’s movements, Lucy’s timing, the barracks, the signal, the Binding Stone, the dome. What I would say. How I would move. My thoughts replayed endlessly, burning themselves into habit.

  Hours passed. Or seconds. Or days. Demon time blurred all sense of it.

  And then… movement.

  The circles twitched. Just the faintest shimmer at first, one rune blinking as though remembering itself. Then another. Then a dozen.

  The spin resumed. Slowly. Carefully. The smallest fraction of rotation, a gear beginning to catch.

  And as the circles stirred, the world itself followed.

  The frozen glass shards hovering in the air quivered, then descended a millimeter. A ripple passed through the banners overhead. The grandmasters’ expressions shifted infinitesimally.

  Softly. Slowly. The world exhaled, its lungs creaking back to life.

  The circles spun faster and faster, humming, grinding, their glow swelling until the pressure in the square returned in full force. The heavy tide of mana washed over me again, pulling me forward.

  The world caught up.

  The White Grandmaster stepped forward, robes flowing like a tide of pale fire. He did not rush. One gloved hand rose, palm open to the sky, toward the projections.

  “War?” His voice rolled, low but resonant, each syllable carrying the weight of prophecy. “Child, I have known of your intent since before you dared whisper it to yourself in the dark.”

  He turned his hand downward now, fingers curling as if closing around the city itself.

  “Your legions march at dawn toward the portside. Your assassins coil in the shadows of the south barracks. Your banners will rise along the market road, hoping to sever my garrisons from their heart. You call this stratagem.” His lips curved into something colder than a smile. “I call it obedience.”

  The Grandmaster spread both arms wide, robes flaring like the wings of some magnificent bird of omen. “You have not outwitted me, little Queen. You have delivered yourself—your army, your hope—into the very jaws I set open for you. The trap is not closing. It is already shut.”

  He lowered his arms with slow, deliberate grace, and his pale eyes fixed on me, unblinking.

  “And now… you will learn why men call me the Grandmaster.”