Ma clapped his hands twice. “Bring the brown-haired jewel to my inner tent.” His sausage-like finger swiveled to Desdemona. “Sergeant Genshu—you have served me well. A talent of silver for your unquestioning zeal in your duties.”

  Genshu slammed a fist to his breastplate and bowed until his greasy ponytail brushed the dust. “This soldier is unworthy of such bounty.”

  “Yes, that you are!” Ma guffawed, a sound thick enough to curdle milk. “See to my orders: the brown-haired one within, the golden one afforded her own guarded pavilion.”

  “Lord General Ma, a single request,” Eloise said, lips frozen in a doll’s perfect smile.

  “A request? I am generous today.” His gaze slithered down her form. “Perhaps you would join me in instructing the Aranthian in Empire values, Lady Mingtian? Perhaps she is also in need of Ying energy.”

  She swallowed a tremor. “Your offer is most generous, but I crave merely a brief discourse with the blonde prisoner—to glean what scraps of intelligence she may conceal.”

  Ma waved a pudgy hand. “Granted, granted. But do not blame me for the wind’s howl or the rain’s hammering.”

  “I shall weather both,” Eloise murmured, bowing with stiff grace.

  The guards obeyed at once, ushering Desdemona—firm yet courteous—through the crimson curtain. A grin, sharp as broken glass, flickered across Seraphina’s lips: Ma will be lucky to leave that tent with anything left attached. The bounty of experience from his death or no, sparing herself his touch was worth the sacrifice.

  Servants, galvanized by barked orders, poured from the pavilion like ants from a disturbed nest. Tables and finely made chairs appeared, arranged beneath fluttering silk banners. Miriam, as if by instinct, leapt to assist, unloading baggage and stacking supplies with brisk precision.

  Then lumbered a matron of terrifying girth, looking half human and half bear, brandishing a ladle like a cudgel. “Lord Ma’s broth scalds unattended,” she groused, superstition thick in her country drawl. “The wind shifts ill when foreign women are in the camp of war.” Her small eyes raked Seraphina. “What does His Excellency see in your kind? Wild branches grafted to a noble tree only sap its strength. And your man-armor—ridiculous! We shall strip it and clothe you in proper womanly garb, lest chaos reign—”

  Seraphina’s vision narrowed to a lethal point. Her greatsword lay a scant stride away.

  From inside the pavilion erupted a bestial howl—Desdemona’s battle cry, raw and echoing, a clarion that tore the air in two. Rage burst Seraphina’s restraints. The bear-woman’s tirade ended mid-syllable as an armored fist punched through rib, lung, and spine in an explosion of viscera.

  It was more mercy than she deserved for her insults, Seraphina mused, would have been slower. Grabbing her weapon and ripping it free from its swaddling, she charged at the soldiers who had welcomed her into their camp. Limbs flew, arterial spray painting the air crimson. System messages cascaded—cold numbers tallying a harvest of meat and fear.

  Above, the sky fractured—spiderweb cracks revealing brilliant white beyond the false heavens. The Trial is collapsing. Desdemona had already felled Ma, draining the bubble of reality of its stabilizing energies. With a snarl, Seraphina triggered Dash and hurtled toward one of the general’s elite guards.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  She seized the warrior’s halberd by its black haft, pivoted him like a siege engine, and faced the camp proper. A roar built in her lungs, magic intertwining with wrath, before exploding outward.

  Wail of Judgment rippled across tents and men alike, a sonic scythe mowing flesh from bone.

  Lines of text blurred until the system finally rewarded her for her gamer’s greed.

  The counter began its countdown. She kicked the elite guard’s corpse off the weapon's shaft—his fingers still locked in a death grip—and allocated her gains without hesitation. All three attribute points were put into Intelligence, and the skill point into Mana Regeneration. Not because she needed to be any smarter, she told herself, but because she needed the Mana. Or so she justified to herself.

  Fixing her eyes on the other remaining elite guard, she tried to use Wail of Judgment again, but the spell resisted her summons. The spell was on cooldown, she realized blithely.

  So she prepared to kill the guard the old-fashioned way. Or, a more stylish way, at least. A crimson Crystal Dagger blossomed in her palm. With a flick of her wrist, it streaked toward the remaining guard. Yet faster still flew Sir Frest’s quarrel that pierced him through the eye, even as her crystalline missile exploded his chest. Even in death, his corpse clung to his precious magical halberd.

  Damn stupid Frest and his kill stealing. She cursed, but there was no time to fume. The world groaned like a ship breaking its keel. Seraphina hurled the halberd to her maid, shouting “Catch, Milly!” before she blasted forward again with Dash, taking a large chunk out of her Stamina as she used the skill on its cooldown.

  Distracted, Miriam left an opening—and the soldier she was fighting seized upon it, driving his blade straight through where a human heart would be. It should have been a killing blow. Unfortunately for him, Palisa Slugs kept their vital organs in very different places. With an annoyed grunt, Miriam dropped her cudgel, caught the thrown weapon just in time, and swung it in a wild arc. The improvised strike connected with a satisfying crack, caving in the maid’s would-be killer’s skull.

  The twins carved a butcher’s toll beside Sir Gravens, whose blade sang to madness as he fought to protect his lady and his lady love. Nearby, Eloise rippled the Earth itself into treacherous waves, tripping the panicked reinforcements that were already far too late to even matter.

  Seraphina’s gauntleted fingers closed round the polearm’s ebon haft just as light shattered everything—prismatic, deafening, divine. Everything fractured like broken glass as a celestial hymn echoed in marrow and soul.

  They had done it. They had absolutely shattered the Trial of “The Realm of the Four Gods.” It was just a shame that cameras and such devices had not been invented in world yet to record all of her glory.