The world stood still, then shattered.
My System was a dying, glitching wreck. My greatest weapon, the font of all my impossible knowledge and power, was fading to black. I was wounded, my spiritual energy almost completely depleted after hacking a god's server room. And I stood on a rooftop in a hostile, alien city, with the unconscious body of my newly-rebooted nemesis at my feet and the eyes of the entire world on me.
This should have been the end. The moment the Fallen Prince, the Otherworldly Demon, was finally cornered, his tricks exhausted, his power spent.
They were about to learn that a sovereign cornered is not a rat in a trap. It is a star about to go supernova.
"He is weakened!" I heard a voice shout from the street below. It was one of the champions from another world, a knight clad in golden armor, his voice ringing with heroic, idiotic conviction. "The demon's power fades! For the glory of the Tower, strike him down!"
A dozen different cultivators and mages began to power up, their auras flaring, ready to claim the ultimate prize.
Elara, my fanatical battle-priestess, and her handful of surviving knights formed a desperate, defensive circle around me. "My lord!" she cried, her face pale but her eyes burning with unshakable faith. "We will die for you!"
"Dying is inefficient," I said, my voice a low growl. I looked down at the unconscious girl at my feet. Lyra. Lia. Whatever her name was now. A blank slate. A perfect, beautiful, and incredibly valuable piece of property that every faction on this floor would now kill to possess. Leaving her was not an option. Losing her was unacceptable.
My priority shifted with blinding, ruthless clarity. Escape was temporary. What I needed was a fortress. A throne. A declaration of my continued dominion in this new, hostile world.
I scooped Lia's limp form into my arms. She was light, a doll of flesh and bone. I looked at Elara, my gaze hard as diamonds.
"The gods of this Tower have tried to take what is mine," I announced, my voice resonating with a power that had nothing to do with my depleted reserves and everything to do with my unbreakable will. "First, they tried to imprison me. Then they tried to erase me. Now, they have tried to steal her memory, to turn her into their puppet."
I looked down at Lia's blank, serene face. "They have failed. I am a sovereign. I do not lose my property. Our plans have changed. We are no longer hiding. We are occupying."
I pointed a single, commanding finger towards the grandest, most arrogant structure in the entire city of Nocturne. A colossal, white marble spire that seemed to defy the eternal twilight, radiating an aura of pure, sanctimonious holiness. The headquarters of the Alabaster Legion.
"That," I declared, "is our new home."
Elara and her knights stared, their minds reeling at the sheer, blasphemous audacity of my plan. "My lord… that is the holiest ground in Nocturne! A temple to their Sun God! They will never allow—"
"Their permission is irrelevant," I cut her off. "They preach of light and order. We will bring them a lesson in shadow and chaos. We will make their holiest temple our new den. No one will ever think to look for a demon on a god's own throne."
It was a move of pure, psychological warfare. A declaration that I was so far beyond their rules that I would use their most sacred spaces as my personal latrine.
I began to walk, carrying Lia in my arms, my exhausted body screaming in protest. I walked to the edge of the rooftop, and I jumped. I landed on the street below with a jarring impact, the cobblestones cracking under my feet. The gathered champions and guild members, who had been preparing to attack, hesitated, taken aback by my sheer, suicidal confidence.
"Follow me," I commanded Elara and her knights.
We marched. A small, ragged procession through the rain-slicked streets of Nocturne. A wounded god, his fanatical followers, and a sleeping princess. We were heading for the heart of our enemy's territory, not as invaders, but as the new owners.
The word spread like wildfire. The entire city watched, stunned into silence, as our small group marched unopposed to the very gates of the Alabaster Spire. The sheer, unadulterated balls of the act was a weapon in itself.
This was not the act of a wounded fugitive. This was the act of a king.